It doesn’t add up... Countdown Rachel’s bizarre cheat claim
COUNTDOWN’S Rachel Riley has seemingly made a bizarre and unexplained confession on her social media accounts – claiming that she’s not very good at maths. The show’s 32-year-old number cruncher is famed for doing complex mathematical calculations in her head on the long-running TV show’s numbers rounds. However, in a video released on her Twitter account on Saturday, Ms Riley stunned her followers by apparently claiming she gets fed the answers through an earpiece. In the video, she appears to say: ‘I’m Rachel Riley and I need to confess something: I’m bad at maths, I get fed the answers in my earpiece. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world but at times I feel like a bit of a fraud. ‘I’m still learning maths and it would lift a lot of that guilt if I could get better at it and not have it weighing over me. At times I was working doing maths like every day and that was really consistent and really good for progress.
‘And lately I get distracted with other things.
‘I really don’t like lying, I know people might think badly of me so it has taken a bit of courage to be here today. And I hope people respect that and don’t think too badly of me.’
Ms Riley’s followers were left confused at the video given that she holds a degree in mathematics from the prestigious Oxford University, with some suspecting the video is a fake or part of a prank.
She replaced Carol Vorderman, 57, who had been the co-presenter of the words and numbers show for 26 years, in 2008. Ms Vorderman left Countdown after a dispute over pay but has gone on to host a number of other TV shows.
Last night Countdown fans and followers expressed their confusion at the video on Twitter.
One wrote: ‘If Carol Vorderman is behind the camera forcing you to say this at gunpoint, BLINK TWICE!! ........ ’ Another, @paulisageek, wrote: ‘Next confession: she’s a professional dancer but was paid to lose on Strictly.’
Neither Channel 4 nor Ms Riley replied to requests for comment from the Irish Daily Mail.