Rachel Riley did not initially tell her children she was doing SHARK! Celebrity Infested Waters
Rachel Riley initially kept her SHARK! Celebrity Infested Waters casting a secret from her daughters, Maven and Noa, because she thought they would have "dreams" of Rachel "getting eaten by a shark".
Rachel Riley initially feared telling her children about being cast in SHARK! Celebrity Infested Waters in case they had "dreams" that she was "getting eaten by a shark".
The 39-year-old Countdown star has daughters Maven, five, and Noa, three, with former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Pasha Kovalev, 45 - who she was paired with on the hit BBC One Latin and ballroom dance show in 2013.
Pasha felt "jealous" when Rachel told him she was jetting out to Bimini, the westernmost island in the Bahamas, Caribbean, to film the ITV1 show - which sees seven celebrities embark on an adrenaline-fueled journey in the shark capital of the world to conquer their phobias of sharks and the ocean.
Rachel explained to Maven and Noa why she had gone away when the Countdown star got to Bimini - and her children's reaction was the opposite of how she thought.
Speaking to Christine Lampard, 46, who stood in for Lorraine Kelly, 65, on the Friday morning (01.08.25) episode of ITV1's Lorraine, Rachel said: "My kids, they were two and four when I was doing it, and I didn't know - I didn't want to scare them, I didn't want them to have dreams that Mummy was getting eaten by a shark.
"So I didn't tell them until I got there. And literally by the pool where we were doing our training, all around the docks, there were these bull sharks, which are these like scary, mean predators.
"And I said to [the kids] when I was there, 'Do you want to see some sharks?'
"They went, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah!'
"And I'm showing them these massive beasts that are eating a fish and are splashing around, and they go, 'Are you going to go swimming with them, Mummy?'
"So it just made me realise that we don't have this in-built fear of sharks, which is something that we learn, and they've been watching along, and have been sitting next to me going, 'Did you keep all your limbs, Mummy?'"
SHARK! Celebrity Infested Waters stars Rachel, comedian Sir Lenny Henry, 66, Amandaland's Lucy Punch, 47, Call the Midwife actress Helen George, 41, McFly bassist Dougie Poynter, 37, comedian Ross Noble, 49, and Paralympian-and-TV presenter Ade Adepitan, 52.
Since the show began airing on July 14, the group - who are accompanied by experts - lowered themselves into cages in a dock where bull sharks are a common sight, a lemon shark sank its teeth into Ross' leg, the group was in the open water as Caribbean reef sharks swam around them, and they swam with hammerhead sharks.
The seven celebrities are building up to dive with tiger sharks - the second biggest predatory shark species.
