Pasha: I didn’t want kids... until I met my love Rachel
FORMER Strictly star Pasha Kovalev is expecting his second baby with
Rachel Riley – but admits he never wanted to be a father.
However, he is not worried about upsetting his Countdown star wife by saying it because he credits meeting her for changing his mind.
Pasha, 41, said: “I didn’t think I wanted kids before Maven came along. I was so busy with my career and I also needed to grow mentally.
“Over the years, it was like a little knock on the door, which said, ‘Hello, would you like to have kids? Not yet? Come back tomorrow’.
“I cannot really pinpoint the exact event or thought that made a change. I think I was just brewing all this time, until I was finally ready, until I started blossoming and saying, ‘OK, I’m ready for kids’. But having met the right person has a lot to do with that.
“I needed to be 100 per cent sure that I had the time and that I would be committed and totally dedicated to my child, because once it comes along you cannot change your mind.”
Pasha met Rachel when they were partnered up on Strictly in 2013.
They announced in May 2019 they were expecting their first child.
The next month they married in Las Vegas – and welcomed their first child, Maven Aria, that December.
This month Oxford maths graduate Rachel, 35, revealed they are having their second child in October. Pasha says: “Once I had Maven I knew I would want a second one.”
● Pasha is also working with his star-studded Rise Up With Arts show which was streamed last month for Nationaltheatre
Day. It can now be watched on demand at riseupwitharts.com
‘Once I had Maven I knew I would want
a second one’