Ruby Wax is currently taking part on the 2025 series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and she’s already proving to be quite the character
Ruby Wax has opened up about her difficult childhood and has admitted that she was “locked in the house” during this time. The iconic celeb interviewer has been honest about the highs and lows of her life through the years.
She has spoken candidly about her stay at a psychiatric hospital and how she has struggled with her mental health throughout adulthood.
Ruby was raised in Chicago, Illinois and was the only child of Austrian immigrant parents. She has said in the past that her parents were physically abusive and she felt like a disappointment to them.
The ITV star said she felt her struggles stemmed back to her childhood. She said: “I was locked in my house as a kid – I had no idea.”
READ MORE: M&S shoppers rave over new ‘comfortable’ £4 checked trousers ideal for work
READ MORE: Inside I’m A Celeb star Ruby Wax’s life off-screen and her famous nepo-baby childrenREAD MORE: I’m A Celeb star died penniless after bosses forced him to quit over tragic fear
The star has said that her mother Berta Wachs was a beautiful “It girl” who spoke eight languages. However Ruby said that she was nothing like her glamorous mother, joking her front teeth “that were in another time zone” and due to having undiagnosed dyslexia was put in “the slow class”.
She said: “It was a cruel house, you know, and it’s a miracle I survived it… I knew the only way out of there was to get a sense of humour. That was my safety gauge.”
Ruby described her parents as her ‘torturers’ saying her father aas intentionally cruel and said her mother was emotionally volatile and would sometimes chase her in the street.
The comedian said: “Well, you know, I wrote about it in my book, I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was, and other books. And this is not all I talk about, but they were torturous, both of them – in my mother innocently and my dad on purpose. You know, he’d play mind games. He’d keep telling me how rich I was.
“You know, he’d take me to the bank and rattle some papers downstairs, going, ‘Boy, are you rich’. It turned out I wasn’t at all, but it kept me at home till I was, you know, (in) my late 30s.
“I thought we were really rich and every time he’d do something vicious, I’d write down a number saying he owes me this much; he owes me this much. If there was a beating, I charged a lot.
She went on to say that her mother was “hysterical” and Ruby could make the joke that she was “on the ceiling with Q-tips”, adding that she was “never without a sponge”.
She said her father would call her a “sad sack”, an “idiot” and quizzed who would marry her. The comedian said it “never stopped”, with the comments even occurring when she had done well. When asked if she loved her parents Ruby told Jamie Laing on his podcast: “no, I didn’t.”
Ruby said she didn’t “really know who they were” and wasn’t “really upset” when they died. In 2023 Ruby told Kate Garraway’s Life Stories: “‘They were pretty violent with each other (and me), you’d have the sh** knocked out of you.”
After Ruby left high school she then moved to the UK where she trained as a classical actress and worked on stage and TV productions before becoming a celebrity interviewer for the BBC in 1991.
After deciding to leave showbiz behind in the early 2000s, Wax studied mindfulness at Oxford University. She then went on to write several self-help books including Sane New World and Mindfulness Guide for Survival.
In 2015 she received an OBE for services to mental health. Ruby has spoken about dealing with depression, which she first experienced when she was just a child.
Ruby is taking part in the current series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and she has already made quite the impression on camp.
Last night’s episode saw her take on The Divey Bushtucker trial alongside AngryGinge. The pair had to eat what was put in front of them which consisted of bugs, camel toe and vomit fruit.
However, they managed to complete the challenge and earn 10 out of a possible 10 stars. This meant that the camp received a better meal that rice and beans but Ruby wasn’t too impressed.
The campmates were given a kangaroo neck to cook, which Ruby said she wouldn’t have bothered with the challenge had she known that was what they were going to win.
*If you are struggling with mental health, you can speak to a trained advisor from Mind mental health charity on 0300 123 3393 or email info@mind.org.uk
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply