Riley was born in Bakersfield, California, to an American mother and English father, and spent time as a child in Hong Kong, Brunei, Cameroon and the United Kingdom.
After attending the Ipswich High School for Girls in England, she studied for her master's degree in broadcast journalism at Cardiff University in Wales in 2005 and 2006.
She supports Ipswich Town, her local club for a period of her childhood, and held a season ticket for five years prior to working full-time.
[3] She is part of the Women In Football network, which was founded in 2007 to offer support to female peers in the male-dominated industry.
[2] Her father, Brian Riley, made news in March 2015 when the former banker refused to give up his position in the Suffolk County Council, despite moving to the United States.