Rachel Rice

Rice worked as an actress from a young age, her most notable role was alongside Hugh Grant in the 1993 gothic horror, Night Train to Venice, when she was eight years old.^[2] She was most active between the years of 1993-1996; also having roles in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Prince and the Pauper. She also took part in multiple television advertisements including Sony Handicam's infamous Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden, in 1991.

Rice was the runner up in the 2003 Miss Wales beauty contest, which was won by Imogen Thomas; who coincidentally appeared as a housemate in series seven of Big Brother UK. She competed for both South and North Wales in Miss Great Britain.

In 2004, she won the Wales on Sunday newspaper's Welsh Idol contest, she was also a finalist in the 2005 More magazine's Most Fanciable Girl in the UK contest.^[3]

In 2008, Rice entered the ninth series of Big Brother UK. She survived two evictions, the first in Week 8, where she and 9 other housemates faced eviction as a punishment for breaking the rules, and the second on Week 10, where she survived over Stuart Pilkington, with 41% of the vote. Rice won the show on Day 93, becoming the shows first Welsh winner.^[1][2] She won with 51.3% of the final vote against Michael Hughes.

During her time in the house, she was the only female to hold the position of Head of House in Week 9 after being the fastest person to recite the alphabet backwards in 1 minute and 5 seconds. Although Darnell Shallow did it faster in 51 seconds, he was ineligible to win as he had won Head of House in Week 6. During her time as HoH, she refused her own message from home in favour of those in Hell (who didn't receive theirs), but ultimately ended up receiving a video from home later on. On Day 62, she was chastised by Big Brother for cleaning and warned if she continued it would be at her "own peril", but continued doing so on Day 63, meaning Hell housemates were forced to clean a stack of dirty dishes each labeled "peril" later that evening. She also claimed that there were 352 days in a year, leading to criticism from fellow housemate Rex Newmark.

After winning, she revealed on Big Brother's Little Brother, that she planned to spend her £100,000 prize money on paying student debts, buying a new car and donated £10,000 to charity.^[4] She confirmed this on a 2009 episode of T4, while discussing her first impressions of the Big Brother series 10 housemates.

Rice is married to Richard Jenkins, they married in 2011.^[5] They have 2 sons.^[6][7] She has a degree in Drama and English, she began teaching full-time in 2013 at Croesyceiliog Comprehensive School.^[8][9]