Rachel Riley has revealed that she and husband Pasha Kovalev are back to living as a family of four after the four Ukrainian refugees who have been living with them for over a year returned to their homeland.
The Countdown host said their daughters, Maven, three, and Noa, one, "loved" having the house guests staying with them at their London home before they recently returned to Ukraine to try and rebuild their lives.
© InstagramSpeaking in an interview with Fabulous magazine, Rachel revealed that the refugees – a woman, her son, aunt and mother – had become like family to herself, Pasha and their children.
"The girls loved it," Rachel said. "It was like having loads of extra aunts, and the eight year old was like a big brother to them. They were from occupied territories in the east so they can’t return home, but they’re going to try and settle in western Ukraine."
The mum-of-two added: "Life has been so hard for them here doing cleaning jobs, travelling across London on the bus and without the language skills to give themselves the comfortable life they had back home.
"They have family fighting, which puts into perspective how lucky we are."
The 37-year-old previously told HELLO! that she hoped welcoming the refugees into their home set "a good example" to her children and showed them the importance of being kind.
"I know it means a lot to them to be with us, and I've tried to make them feel as 'at home' as possible in our space. I think my daughter probably doesn't remember a time without them now, which is lovely," Rachel said.
SEE: Rachel Riley and Pasha Kovalev look absolutely smitten in stunning new wedding selfie
Rachel and Pasha live together in the capital, in a home that they have previously shared several glimpses inside on social media and during appearances on Celebrity Gogglebox.
However, the couple are already making plans for a big move in the future, as Rachel recently revealed that she and Pasha are looking to sell their home in a bid to move somewhere commutable between London and her workplace in the north.
"I think we're hopefully going to move out of London in the next couple of years," she told The Times. "Probably not back to Essex but somewhere commutable to London.
"Countdown is filmed in Salford, so somewhere we can get up and down to there as well. So probably west, I quite like west. I was at uni in Oxford and my brother is there as well."
