Inside Pasha Kovalev’s marriage to Channel 4 star - from Strictly curse to adorable daughters
Pasha Kovalev shot to fame on BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing as one of the show's professional dancers and while he left in 2018, he is still a much-loved member of the Strictly family. The Russian ballroom dancer left Strictly in a bid to take on new challenges, after joining the BBC dance show in 2011. He won the Glitterball trophy once and made it to the final on another occasion. However, it was meeting his now-wife Rachel Riley on the hit show that was his biggest win.
Pasha and Rachel, 38, began dating back 2013 after competing on Strictly together. The happy couple married in Las Vegas in 2018 and reside in London together. Months after they tied the knot, Rachel - who is famed for appearing on Channel 4's Countdown - and Pasha welcomed their first child, a daughter named Maven. In 2021, the couple's second daughter, Noa, was born.
Rachel and Pasha regularly share snaps of their family life online and have opened up about their hectic life with their two daughters on several occasions. Rachel, who was previously married to Jamie Gilbert, previously said she found being a mum "liberating" and praised Pasha's parenting skills.
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Speaking to OK! previously, the Channel 4 star said: "I’ve found it quite liberating. It makes you live in the moment a lot more. It’s like we know a totally different baby because all the tricks we know work differently for both of us. Pasha is a wonderful dad. He’s really, really brilliant."
However, she has spoken about the difficulty of juggling parenting with busy work schedules, especially Pasha working away a lot. Last year, Rachel revealed "everything is always in flux" in her relationship with the professional dancer.
She told The Sun: "It would be nice, once I'm not feeding the baby and picking her up, maybe we could even have a night together, but that feels a million miles away at the moment." She also said she needed to be "more organised" to see what days Pasha has off, pointing out: "I'm juggling so many things."
Rachel admitted they can sometimes feel like "ships passing in the night" due to their hectic lives. Rachel previously said: "When you first get together, if they're away for three months and you've only been together a month, it's a big deal. But when you've been together the best part of decade and you can see a future of how ever many more decades that you get together, it kind of changes your perspective."
