Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Dominique Hines

‘I have a dirty sense of humour!’ Rachel Riley gets a kick out of spelling rude words on Countdown

Countdown’s Rachel Riley has admitted to having a “dirty sense of humour” and enjoying spelling out rude words on the Channel 4 show.

Riley, 37, who has been co-presenting Countdown for over a decade, said while she has to keep a straight face when vowels and consonants spell out explicit words, she secretly loves it.

“I get to choose what I put on the board on Countdown, the whole idea is to pull a straight face,” she said.

“There is some really weird stuff that comes out but that’s the fun of it.

“Kids can watch but anyone with my kind of dirty sense of humour can watch,” she added to The Sun.

Riley also admitted that she accidentally taught her daughter Maven, who is two, “some bad language during the football” over the winter.

The words whiz, who also shares daughter Noa with Strictly’s Pasha Kovalev, has famously left fans embarrassed with some off-colour phrases.

She once presented a selection of the “naughtiest” words to have ever appeared on the show.

The letters, which were randomly chosen by her, included, “erection”, “sh*g”, “vaginas”, “orgasms” and, “OK I squirt”.

Other words picked by contestants were “perverts”, “bum***e”, “sugar t***” and “no panties”.

She also spotted the words “j*zz” and “louder” put together in sequence.

Riley has remained a viewer favourite since first joining Countdown in 2009 at age 22. She landed the coveted gig shortly after graduating from Oxford University.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.