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1. She used to resent Louis

Ruby and Louis are both famed for their documentaries and their very revealing celebrity interviews. As Louis says, they’ve worked, “in the same ballpark.” Ruby began making documentaries in the 90s and became one of the biggest celebrity interviewers on TV. “You get in a role,” she says. “You think, I’m invincible, everybody loves me. I have all these viewers... But then my career stopped. Nobody would talk to me again. Then all that kept going on was Louis Theroux.” As her TV work dried up, she became ever more aware of Louis’s ascent. She says taxi drivers would say, “Didn’t you used to do what Louis Theroux does?” She says she didn’t hate Louis, but “what you brought up, which is jealousy, envy, failure, my dad’s disapproval.”

2. Donald Trump was the worst interview she’s ever done

Ruby interviewed Donald Trump back in the 90s. She calls it, “the worst interview I’ve ever done,” because Trump reminded her of her father. “I thought I’d really like him,” she says. “We sat down and he smelled my fear, like my dad used to, like an animal. The hatred in his eyes and how stupid he thought I was... And I became that. The stupidest questions I’ve ever asked in my life.” Trump eventually threw Ruby off his private plane. She said she heard Trump later said, “If I see her again, I’ll kill her.”

3. She never wanted to do celebrity interviews

Although it’s the thing that made her really famous, Ruby says, “I never really liked interviewing celebrities, except Carrie Fisher and a few others. I was a documentary maker. That was my passion for 20 years. I was in Russia – Glasnost. I became a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I was the first Jew to be made a wizard.” She wanted to do more serious documentary work but says that Lorraine Heggessey, Controller of 鲍鱼tv One in the early 00s, said, “I just want her to be funny’... She looked at me appalled, like I couldn’t be a serious interviewer.” Ruby laments the “brash American” persona that was her trademark. “I wish I didn’t have it. On the other hand, it got 13 million viewers.”

I never really liked interviewing celebrities, except Carrie Fisher and a few others. I was a documentary maker. That was my passion for 20 years.

4. She became an interviewer after a drunken night out

So, if Ruby never wanted to interview celebrities, how did that become her main TV job? Alcohol. “I was doing the Edinburgh Festival to promote Girls on Top (a sitcom with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders) and Michael Grade (then head of Channel 4) was with me.” Their event got delayed until 2am, so, “Michael Grade and I started drinking from a bottle of scotch. Then they say, ‘Here’s Ruby Wax from Girls on Top!’ Total silence. I’m drunk. I bring out Michael Grade. I don’t remember what happened but an hour later I had a chat show.”

5. She lived with Hugh Hefner for a week

Ruby became an expert at charming her subjects, which enabled her to get them to really open up. “They’d say, ‘Oh, you can only have 10-minutes,’ and then I’d try to make them love me. Bette Midler said 10-minutes. Well, we spent the week together.” When she interviewed Hugh Hefner, the late Playboy mogul, she moved in with him for a week. “[He loved me] because I treated him like a human, rather than a joke. I treated him like a very smart man.”

6. She found Bill Cosby frightening

Ruby interviewed Bill Cosby in 1997, many years before he was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault. She calls him, “frightening... All day I was being tested and I was the bad guy. There’s poison coming out of that one.” She’s never watched the whole interview back – “I never watch my stuff” – but when Louis tells her about how Cosby made pretend phone calls to intimidate her, she says, “Wow, my shows were heavier than I thought.”

7. She had a very difficult childhood

“My mother was insane, and my father was insane. I use that lovingly,” says Ruby. “Nobody knew what that meant at the time. I thought they were normal.” Ruby’s childhood was difficult. She says her father would abuse her emotionally and sometimes beat her, and her mother, “would chase me screaming into the street, like a wild animal.” Once they left her alone in South America. “I wasn’t in time to meet them to go to the airport. So, my dad left me, with $16 to find my way home. I was in my swimsuit.” She was 11.

8. She’s suffered with depression since her teens

Ruby has talked very openly about her depression. She didn’t realise she had it until she was 30, although it’s affected her since she was a teenager. “I thought it was a physical disease, because you sort of go to sleep, but your body’s moving,” she says. “That’s what depression feels like. That’s why it’s not sadness... You’re gone. Nobody’s home. You move your arm somehow and it’s a miracle. Taking a shower is inconceivable.” She had a particularly bad period of depression in 2003, when her career took a downturn. “That was the worst one. After that I decided I’d become a shrink to see who’s ripping me off.” She has studied psychotherapy and has a master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

9. She came to the UK to marry Paul McCartney

Ruby was raised in Illinois, but her difficult relationship with her parents caused her decision to move to England. That and Paul McCartney. “I wanted to marry Paul and I wanted to be a classical actress. I mean, no talent doesn’t even cover it. In my high school, everyone got a part in Hello Dolly except me. And there were 3,000 people.” She became an actress, but it was many years until she actually met Paul McCartney, and it did not go well. She got drunk and accidentally insulted him while sitting on his lap. They did not marry.

10. She didn’t love her husband when she married him

Ruby has been married to the producer Ed Bye for over 30 years. “I didn’t really love him when I married him,” she says, but she was persuaded by her psychiatrist. “He was warm. She said, marry him. I didn’t even like him. But we were working together and I thought, well, maybe she’s got something there.” He was also recommended by Dawn French. “It was kind of artificial, but I picked the right person. It’s kind of like roulette when you suddenly land on the right one.”