Anna Ryder Richardson was born in Swansea in 1964. Her father was a Malaysian student, and her mother Welsh. At six weeks of age, she was adopted by Colin and Jill Ryder Richardson, and raised in Surrey with her adopted sister Sarah. Her adoptive father, was a wartime evacuee who survived the sinking of the SS City of Benares by a German U-Boat; he spent his career as a Lloyd’s underwriter. She was introduced to her partner, restaurateur Colin MacDougall, at his restaurant on New Year’s Eve 2000, and they married at a private ceremony in the Canadian Rockies. Their first child, Bean, was born prematurely and died less than 60 minutes after birth. They have had two more children, Dixie Dot and Bibi Belle. As of 2018, she and MacDougall have separated.

Her breakthrough moment was on a design segment on GMTV in 1996, after which Ainsley Harriott introduced her to the producers of short-lived documentary show Change That. She was cast as one of the interior designers on Changing Rooms where she sprung to fame for her bold interior design choices. She worked on a number of smaller shows, including House Invaders, Staying Put and Trading Spaces. None of these had the same mainstream success as Changing Rooms, and in 2006, reconsidered the direction of her career.

In 2008, she purchased Manor House Wildlife Park, St Florence, near Tenby, Pembrokeshire for £1 million. Her experiences at the zoo have been the subject of a number of television series, including Chaos at the Zoo, Anna’s Welsh Zoo and Wild Welsh Zoo. She was charged for health and safety violations in 2012, after a mother and son were injured by a falling tree, but acquitted after her husband admitted that work fell under his remit.

In 2015, she set up a charity called ‘The Nature Foundation’ to transport neglected lionesses from an abandoned zoo in Gyumri to Peak Wildlife Park. She successfully raised £25,000 to transport the animals, but the high-profile nature of the campaign ensured that locals provided adequate facilities for the lionesses in their native Armenia. The funds instead went to breeding facilities for the endangered Sumatran Tiger. As of 2020, she still owns the park.

In 2017, it was announced that she would return to interior design, appearing as a designer on Peter Andre’s 60 Minute Makeover.