The Life Of Bryony - “Being Well Liked Is Like Heroin” – Ruby Wax on Fame, Interviewing Celebrities and Living with a Fragile Mind

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

This week, I’m joined by Ruby Wax – comedy hurricane, TV icon and the woman who gave many of us permission to talk honestly about our own “mad” minds. Ruby looks back on the glory days of nineties telly, when she was let loose on the world’s biggest names and told to make mischief – all while quietly battling depression behind the scenes. We talk about fame as an addiction, why being liked felt like her life support, and how she ended up in clinic even when everything looked perfect on paper. There are unforgettable stories of chaotic interviews with Madonna and Trump, surreal dinners with Fergie and Andrew, and despots who thought she was their new best friend – plus what all of that taught her about ego, fear and survival. If you’ve ever wondered how someone can be the funniest person in the room and still be struggling inside, this episode will stay with you long after you’ve listened.USEFUL LINKS:Tickets to Ruby’s tour, Absolutely Famous, can be bought here.And you can join Frazzled Café online 7 days a week here: https://www.frazzledcafe.org/ WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Ruby WaxProducer: Laura Elwood-Craig Assistant Producer: Tippi Willard Studio Manager: Mitchell LiasProduction Manager: Vittoria CecchiniEditor: Rowan JacobsExec Producer: Jamie East A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, lovely ones. Now, I'm just going to come straight out and say it. Today's guest is the reason I'm here. She's the reason most of us first learned you could be both completely hilarious and completely unhinged in public. She is my inspiration, my queen. She's Ruby Wax, a comedy legend, a best-selling author, and a woman who has quite literally turned her own brain into a full-time job. And today on The Life of Briney, she's joining me for a searingly honest conversation about mental health, madness and why none of us are quite as fine as we pretend to be. Being famous, that's my drug. Because as long as they're talking, you still exist. Because I feel quite invisible. But when there's somebody in front of me and I can feel their agency, then I can feel

on the reflection of them. My conversation with Ruby, coming up right after this. Ruby Wax, welcome to the life of Briany. I am so thrilled to have you here because I feel feel like the life of Ruby is quite similar to the life of Briene. Could be. Could be. Good guess. I feel like it's, it's, it's sort of periods of deep depression punctuated by unimaginable glamour. That's it. Yeah. Does that sum it up? It's dragging yourself a corpse around. And then somebody will say, you know, I saw you in a show and you go, who was that? Who could you possibly be talking about? Yeah, there's, there's moments of people think you have a great And then you go, oh, just take me home.

Let me live next to your pet. I'm so grateful that you left your home today to come to us. Because you didn't feel like it. And I kind of want to talk about that if that's okay. Because I don't ever feel like doing anything. My brain doesn't want me to do anything. Like we wake up and it's the brain says, stay there, briny. No one wants to see you.

This is the safest place. That's where we are. Slightly sweating, slightly not knowing what's going to come out of my mouth. Okay. Because I'm not in that perky form. But do you feel like you have to be perky all the time? Well, if you're on a podcast and a big thing is shoved in your mouth, you sort of think I have to say something.

Interesting. But just whatever comes out of your mouth is interesting because it's you. But still. Yeah, but who's you? You know, do you feel like Briannie? I don't feel like Ruby. Okay, well, I, shall I tell you who Ruby is to me? Oh, we got a little thing here?

I know what she's done. She's done some interesting stuff. You probably won't remember this, Because it was about 15, 20 years ago when I was, I was going to say a cub reporter on another newspaper. And I was in a really deep depression and a terrible episode of obsessive compulsive disorder. And as it happened, I was sent to interview you at your house, actually. And I think I told you that I was feeling a bit. And you were amazing.

And you were one of the first women, or actually not just women, humans, who I had seen publicly speak about this sort of gremlin in your head. And it gave me permission to talk about the gremlin in mine. And I just think you're a kind of, you're just a queen. Oh, well, there you go. Inside today I'm not. I'm back in the gremlin seat. And I'm a meditator and I teach this stuff.

and I'm on tour and everything's good, but we have this thing, this thing called depression that comes in visits when it wants to visit. And so it's just outside my door now and it's just about to knock. So that's the state you see me in. Okay. Yeah.

Have you worked out the reasons? Oh, we could go on and on. But I don't think it has to do with that. I think it's a chemical thing. It's like maybe you ate something. Maybe something happened when you were two. You know, I don't want to spend money on somebody, drilling me over and over again.

And then I'll come to something funny and I'll use it, you know, for my show. But we never get to the bottom of it. I don't think we're like, you know, when a plane crashes, there's a black box and you see the recordings. I don't believe there's a nub that, you know, that started all this. I think that there is, you know, there's a trillion cells moving around all the time. How do we know? And your thoughts are like 1% of the 99% running you.

They're irrelevant. But there, Lewis Walport said really interestingly, he said, thoughts are to depression, what a tumor is to cancer. So how do we know where these sick thoughts come from? Yeah. And you can't blame yourself. You just happen to have the mental equivalent of herpes or cancer or whatever you want to call it. Someone told me that thinking was the worst. Like I said, I just can't stop.

I can't. I was like, I'm thinking. And someone said, stop. Stop thinking, briny, because that's the mistake you might. make and I'm like but that's asking the pope like asking the pope not to be catholic right well you can't stop thinking there it's a misdemeanor that somebody would think that's possible yeah you know we're creatures that have to think every you know that it's a curse and it's a blessing you know because when animals sort of look around for trouble they're doing it instinctively and we use what the

contemporary illnesses are today like i didn't get invited why doesn't that person like me how come i look at 840 you know you're using these things that detaintinges danger, but that you're using it with vocabulary. And it's always false. It's never true. Yeah. Okay. So it's never true. Okay. So here's the reality, Ruby Wax. You are a legend, a successful woman who has managed to keep going in, you know, career terms. We call it reinvention, but I think it's just evolution, really, as a woman. And you are still, I mean, you just did, I'm a celebrity, and you're now going on tour. Can you talk to me a bit about this tour?

Because that is, I suppose, it's the paradox, isn't it? It's that you feel this stuff inside and the Gremlin is there. And yet you're able to get up on stage for how many nights are we doing? Are we? I'm like, I'm not there with you. How many nights are you doing, Ruby? Oh, this week three, then four. There's about 35 shows.

but of all my shows, I always end up, this is tragic, doing about 123, and then I move on to the next show. Isn't that insane? 123. Of each show. First of all, tell us what this show is about. Right. So it's about all of the, it's your experience of interviewing. Well, we show clips and we show stuff that hasn't been in the shows.

Okay. So you see Trump, you see Melania, you see Amelda, you see Madonna, you see, you have everything. But we talk about the nature of fame and the addiction of it. So it's not like, and here's me. We show Lumley what Lumley was doing when I found her. You know, because her career had plummeted. What was she doing? She was in some hideous play where she played Amelda Marcos

somewhere in some town out of London. And it was grotesque. But she was beautiful and funny. So I ran into the office and I said, bingo, I found this stuff. I should have been an agent. I should have been an agent because I find people and they become really. successful. Luckily, they're more talented than I am. Otherwise, I'd be furious. But I've played her dormant since she's become this big star, but she deserves it because she's as nice as you think

she is. Joanna Lumley. If it was anybody else, I'd kill her. So in the 90s, you were this, you were, you were doing these fantastic interviews with Trump, Melania, Madonna. Yeah. O.J. Simpson. They never let me lose with the, with the criminals, but, or the, or the, despots, as we call them. And I had Arafat and Gaddafi lined up. What? Through John Simpson, they were my next guest. And I would have been really good. But the BBC said, no, she has to stay a comedian. And then I thought I'm out of here. Really? Yeah, I really wanted to go on and do that. Before I did celebrity, I did really heavy stuff, you know, that now Louis does. I'm not saying we're the same. I'm just saying it was, you know,

the Kul Klux Klan. It wasn't lightweight stuff. You did a lot of the stuff that Louis thought. Roo went on to do, you did. Well, for 20 years. Yeah. I mean, and actually, I thought that was, I thought that was interesting because I remember listening to you on his podcast during the pandemic. Yeah. And you were very, he sort of came in and said, let's get this elephant out of the room, you know, that, that you have this sort of. Well, he thought I'd be zany and all giggly and kind of probably give him one liners. And I said, wait a minute, Louis, this is, I don't, you know, let's let me just tell you it's not about you. It's what I, it's what you remind me of.

You know, it's what you're taking food out of my children's mouths. And so it's deeper than just who you are. I couldn't care less. It's actually not about him. It's about you. It's about what I'm projecting on him. So because we spoke on that level, we sort of, you know, I forget, I was, I let my children say words that started with an L.

So you feel quite comfortable talking about the L word now. I can talk about the L word. So have you watched the, because you haven't watched the manisphir? No, is it good? It's fine. But what I wanted to know was I was wondered how you would handle the manosphere. Because I would love to see Ruby Wax exposing the manosphere. You know, I always did the interview, but there was a story underneath the interview.

And I think that's what made it interesting. So you'd take a despot and you'd make her adorable, which showed even. more how self-deception works. So, you know, you play two games. So I haven't seen his program, but if you just do a plain interview, you're just enhancing their image. You know, you're catering to it. So you better have some spikes underneath it that they can't see, but that has your point of view under it, what you really think, but you played lightly with them. So my interviews were always about some, they were about the nature of the disease. And then you said, So then I just played on top.

So you need to have two levels. I don't know if that show has two levels. You kind of want them to hang themselves a little bit. I mean, they do it with sweetness. They definitely do hang themselves a little bit. I mean, I definitely feel you don't, I mean, you don't come out. And some of them seem quite actually they're like little boys. Yeah.

So it does succeed on that. But I feel that, I don't know, perhaps it doesn't, in the age of social media, it doesn't have the impact that perhaps these things used to have. That's true because everything's exposed anyway. Yeah. That's why it's sad that I couldn't do my kind of show anymore. People say, why don't you do it anymore? Because of social media.

Everybody's protected behind their image, whether you see through it or not is your business. When I did it, you bypassed the PR and you bypassed anybody else if that person loved you. And you know, I work with them for a week. I didn't just do a half an hour interview. And you'd work with them for a week because you'd get your foot in the door and then you'd become their best friend. And I really wanted to be Carrie Fisher's best friend. That wasn't a sham.

And I did anything for it. It was like watching a courtship happen. So I'd have a week with her. And then you could, you know, cut it down to a half an hour. So you get such an intimate viewing of what a love affair is between two women. It always worked with the women. It didn't really work with the men. except with Jim Carrey and Tom Hanks.

That worked. Really? Because we got each other's a sense of humor. Yeah. Yeah. Jim Carrey's an interesting one, I think. Oh, he was one of my favorites. Did you see it?

I can't remember. He decided he could pull the tablecloth out from a T-set in the Dorchester, but I mean the full silver service in China. And I really believed he could do it. And he was at the end of a day he'd done a junket where he did Wal-to-Wil interview. So I was the last. And I've never done it. a 10-minute interview.

You know, I just said for the sake of my children eating, again, that's my credit. Every time I use something for begging. Please just try to be funny. So I started being funny, and he didn't want to be upstage. I was never near him, but he started washing the tennis wall was back and forth. And eventually we led to a frenzy. And I said, pull the tablecloth out. And he did.

And tea was on the ceiling. And it was thousands and thousands of pounds worth of damage in the Dorchester with tea, rippling off of every piece of furniture. It costs tens of thousands for us to repair. And all these scenes are in the show, the show that you're doing. Yeah, you see all of this. Tell me about Madonna. It was horrible. Why was it horrible? Luckily, we could cut around because with her I really did have a half an hour. I got off the plane from doing a Melda Marcos where we had five days with her because she sort of loved me. Somebody put a copy of Hello magazine in her garbage can, her rubbish bin.

Sorry, I forgot where I was. And so she goes, You're on Kavav of Hello? And I didn't have put it in there. And I said, Clive, did you put it in there? And he said, no, why was it in her garbage can? So she then went, oh, she's famous. Well, she's a starfucker.

So you became useful to her? I was useful to her. And she loves it. You know, she was friends with Saddam Hussein and Castro. And, you know, at one point, she's singing for me. I mean, she really went to town and showed me her next stash of shoes. so she can't do enough. You see her sort of treating me a little distastefully.

Then she notices the bling I've got on because I took hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of jewelry that we borrowed so that she'd be confused. Why would a journalist have such, you know, fabulous jewels? So she was confused. She knew I was somebody. But she couldn't figure out what.

And then she's slightly gay. So do I flirt my little socks off? And then by the end she took me to the attic and showed me her next stash of shoes and got rid of that idiot son Bongbong, who now is the premier of the Philippines. Wow. So you did, so you had your five days with Amelda Marcus trying to seduce you, basically. By the way, she did everything. Because she liked me so much, she let me go into the room where all her accounts are. So they stole five billion from the

country, her and her husband. And so she gave me all her account books. And I could see the cufflinks were six million. The watches were 12 million. She just let me go through it. And I said to the man guarding, I said, where's the money? And he goes, I guess it's in Switzerland. I said, well, is it her money? And he said, no, it's the Filipino people's money. And I had all those books. So I guess that's where maybe Lou and I might, I just kept pushing.

Yeah. You just keep pushing. And then you don't treat them. You don't pass judgment. You know, she's just nuts. What about, is Madonna? So you go straight from your five days with her. And I have a half an hour with Madonna at the Ritz with her entourage around

the bed. And I can't, you know, if somebody's, well, you know, you're this close, but it's one person. But there was about 15 people around the bed. And she's telling the cameraman which camera she wants. One camera was really beautiful, you know, was glossy and made you look 10. And the other one was kind of rough. And I put the rough one on me because I knew she'd go, change cameras. Wow. So she looks like the surface of the moon and I'm like quite dewy and motley looking. But, you know, I got desperate because it's a comedy show. So finally at the end, I put her underpants on my head because I went through her handbag. And I thought, you have to be desperate in an interview to put somebody's underpants on their head.

But, you know, at least it made it. I was always scared of losing my job. So I had to do whatever to bump it up. So, but that was tragic. Usually it got bumped up. Pamela Anderson bumped it up for me. So what if you, can I ask you what you have learned? Because I, when I listened to interviews with you,

what really lands with me is that fear of always, that fear that you're going to lose your job, that things are going to go. And I thought it was really interesting when you spoke about that that's the sort of generational trauma that you've inherited from your father, was it, who had to escape Vienna. Well, everybody had to escape. Yeah.

So I... The funny ones with No Sensu. didn't make it. My great grandparents escaped the pogroms in Russia and came to the UK. And even though that happened long before, I was even a spark in my parents' eyes, it was in the fabric of my family was this kind of sense of everything you have, you might lose tomorrow. And then you make it worse by going and working in the media. Well, it's the equivalent of war. So, you know, if you escape that unscathed, you've really made it. Yeah. So we try to recreate what our parents, the legacy. So do you feel like you, do you still feel like you live in sort of fear that

everything is going to go? Oh, always. Really? And tomorrow. Yeah. Even now. That's, we're not right now because we're safe here. We are safe. We are safe. We are safe. We're with a, you know, likely person that's similar. So it's okay. You'd understand if suddenly I break down weeping. Uh, but, um, but um, you know, we're not. Um, you know, you know, we're not. Um, um, but, um, um, um, but um, Like tomorrow night when I do my show, it's life and death. It looks easy because I was, you know, I was trained by Alan Rickman. And he taught me how to do comedy. But that was rigorous.

That was for 35 years. Wow. So it'll never show. It'll never show. But, you know, because he says, never look desperate. Pull back. Pull back. So that, you know, that you make the audience work.

That's really tough when you're feeling like this. Because you just want to hurl yourself on the floor and go, please. save me. But, yeah, I feel like the next day I'll be busted. Somebody will say, you're getting away with too much. You must now go to prison. Do not pass, do not pass payday. So there's no, there's no middle ground. There's no middle ground. Don't you feel that way? Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, um, fear is, is, it's there. It's never, it's never, it's never, it's never far away. And if I sense that it is far away, I start to get fearful. Yes, because we need that. Yeah. As a, yeah, companions in life. I think, oh, something,

something must be about to go very wrong. Yeah, if you're feeling too good. Yeah. It's your, yeah, you're taking your life in your own hands. Yeah. And I never, I never kind of, I never, it's not, it's not that I don't take anything for granted, because that's, that sort of implies sort of gratitude and a spiritual kind of wisdom, you know, it's not like that. It's, it's, it's, it's fear-based, you know, it's like this could all go and it's a horrible feeling. But do you think it's a legacy from, you know, from people escaping? Maybe. Maybe. We'll never know, you know, and I won't pay for finding out. No. So therapy is not, you know, I was a therapist. I never did it professionally, but I went to school. Once I got fired from TV, I thought, what else can I do?

So I went back to therapy school. It was sort of sad. I was never going to be a therapist. It was just something to do. Yeah. But then when I did go to later on to Oxford, then I did think this meditation thing is interesting. So you did a master's in mindfulness at Oxford? And neuroscience. And neuroscience. You see, this is the other thing, right? All of the incredible things you do. And and still you can't see what a talented woman you are. Well, I mean, you know, it's such a long life. You have to kind of do something to keep it going. But, you know, if meditation or medication was the answer, we'd be perfectly fine.

The point is we change every second. You know, all these little cells are changing all the time. So you may catch up with yourself and you're steady, but the next second you have to beware. But usually I'm the meditation between the two of those, I'm okay. Okay. Yeah. So on stage, life and death.

So tomorrow it will be life and death. A little bit, but I'm with Clive Tullo, who was my producer for 25 years. So we play kind of, you know, comedy ping pong. And he's hilarious. So it makes a show really, you know, he knows everything. He knew what happened behind the scenes. He knew what O.J was trying to stab me with a knife. he couldn't find a knife in the hallway, so he found a banana.

And I opened the door and he was standing there, you know, doing the psycho thing. Great telly. Great telly. No, weird things happened to me. Or the Ku Klux Klan deciding I would be their next wizard. See, that's the thing, is that you join them and then you hang them. But what was going through your head? Well, I became so, you know, seemingly friendly and agreed with everything they said that they started acting out for me.

I mean, they did a lynching to please me. Oh, no, this is television. You hang them by being their friend. Yeah. Yeah. Like Melda and I were the closest you could be when I left her. She gave me her pearls. She gave me her top that said Melda on it that was embroidered on it, which Reagan gave her

when he airlifted her out of the Philippines and brought her to Hawaii to save the family that stole $5 billion. and she gave me that. If you are best friends. And in those moments you really think you are. And they have no idea what's coming for them. No, it's not like I'm doing maliciously. I kind of am having a great day.

You are a real people pleaser. I am a real people pleaser. No, and they're pleasing me. I mean, it's mutual. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always think get in the sandbox and have fun and then see what happens. Wow. And you did Trump?

I did Trump. Well, I couldn't please him. He hated my guts on sight. He just, the loathing that came out of his friend. Do you think that's just because you were a woman? I was a woman and it wasn't fuckable. Yeah. So he didn't really understand.

And he had comedy scares him too. I was being funny. And then he treated me like such an idiot. So you were a woman and you were fuckable to him. Well, the pilot didn't think I was so hot either. I did, either did Roger Stone, who was on the flight. Roger Stone worked for him until he was put in prison. But they're a certain type of man, aren't they?

type of man, but I couldn't crack it, and they hated me. We wouldn't want to fuck them either, Ruby. No, no, I mean, it was mutual, but I was at least being, you know, as polite as I could. And then if you treat somebody like a moron, like, you know, like they're a real idiot, you become it. So I started asking ridiculous questions. I am a mud guy tied in a kind of nod, and every stupidity came out. So he said, and he was on it.

He was on it. He said, you're angry with a smile. And that's completely what I was. And from that moment on, he just called me, it was just, he hailed me with insults, telling me how obnoxious I was and how nobody in England would know who I was and that I would lose my job. He got it. He just gave it to me. And you see him doing that.

Yeah. Then you don't see me getting in a car with him. And him and Roger Stone at another point where I had no sound on me and they told me what they like to do to women. And, you know, threesomes and whatever and, you know, leave one. They did it so I'd go, oh, I'm blushing my liege, you know, that I'd really be shocked, but I said, this is what I do to women. And then they accepted me.

Really? Because they knew I was a terrorist like them. You just play ball. So they don't know what side you're on. So it was when he started to go into grab them by the pussy territory. I said, I'd do that too. Right. But I was cruder in my descriptions.

Okay. So he thought, oh, she's gay, she's safe, and she's one of us. Right. Yeah. So when you say, how do I do an interview differently, that's kind of a, you know, you're playing ball with the devil. And that I used to love. It was bullfighting. When it came to an end, someone whose career who takes so much like me, this is not a judgment of their self-esteem from their work, how does it feel when it ends? It feels like what you think it feels like. I mean, I did end up in a mental clinic. Yeah. I don't think because of that, because I've done things really, my life has been going swimmingly, and I still end up in a mental clinic. I think it's my home from home. That's why they like me so much, my people, because, you know, we all meet on the same playing field.

Do you accept that you will always end up in a mental clinic? I think so. I mean, I won't always. until they perfect drugs or they find the right drug. Do you mind me asking what drugs you're on? Well, SSRIs and Lomatrogen. Okay. And teeny soupsaint of a repripozole. What's ruperperiz? Is that a beta blocker?

No. Oh, no, we're way beyond beta blockers. We're way beyond. That's like using salt. It's like when I get up, I crunch, because there's all those pills looking at you every morning and you think, oh, come on, Ruby, pull yourself on. Pull yourself out of this.

But when I wrote my book, the last one, the part of the book was about looking for meaning. So I went on a 30-day silent retreat. I went swimming with humpbacks. I went to Christian monastery. I tried to get people out of Afghanistan. I did all that to see if I could enrich my life. But I came off of medication gradually to take psilocybin. And I ended up in a mental ward.

So the book and the show were kind of juxtaposition. between somebody really looking for, you know, something to fill her heart, which it did. I mean, 30-day silent retreat does work, but boy, do you have to get through it. But you also live, you can't live on a 30-day silent-retty-no, but if you played the cards right, you know what I mean, it would have a lasting. Okay, so not forever. Can we talk about a silent retreat, 30-day silent retreat? What is a 30-day?

Well, you do meditation for 13 hours a day, and then you get up at five. There's gongs, like big gong, gong, gong, gong, gong that make your cervix vibrate. Oh, wow, that sounds fun. I'd like to do that for a few days. No, it's not fun. It's like you're playing bass with your innards. Okay, maybe not. And then you go to the next sitting, meditation, walking, walking, sitting, walking,

lunch, sitting, walking. You never stop meditating. So for the first five days you're in hell longer than that, because you're getting all the thoughts and you have no phone and you can't read anything and it's just you're facing the devil. and then after that around seven days in the thoughts start they don't go the thoughts will never go but they start losing their oomph because you're not fighting anything you don't know what I mean nobody's returning the tennis ball so it starts to fizzle out so you get like boy are you and ask god did you fuck it doesn't you can't finish the firework so eventually there's total it's

food taste delicious. Colors are vivid. But before that you want all your habits, everything that makes you distract you, distracts you. So I would go shopping for stones because I wanted to shop. So I'd go, and I had an imaginary sales lady,

and I'd make deals with her about which stone I liked. And I'd take it home and then realize I had the wrong stone, and I'd go back and return. And she'd say, there are no returns. I would be talking to myself in a woods. I think you said yes. I could return it. I have an imaginary argument.

Yeah, with the sales lady. I think that's very relatable. Yeah. Anyway, then that goes away, and then you're just left with looking at mosquitoes. And you see things really clearly in nature. You know, you watch an aunt go up and down going, I've never seen this before, you know, but you can't talk. But now you're really in your body and it becomes red becomes red.

Wow. Yeah. I'm sure that's why people take psilocybin. because it's very similar to what happens when you meditate that long. So, yeah, tell me that, because that's an interesting, that's a new frontier, isn't it, of mental health treatment is hallucinogenic drugs. And it will be. It's just where in the Wild West still. So what was psilocyblin like?

I didn't do psilocybin because I ended up in a mental ward. Oh, okay. Right. Right. Yeah. I wanted to do it for one of my journeys. But you came back from the silent retreat. No, no. Then I went migrating with humpbacks. I was on a ship. There were 10 German healers, you know, who believed that the bales download their information from the cosmos. And then they speak to you. So at night, I'd hang out with the healers who would be going, they talked to the whales. And the other 10 were American trumpsters.

We had Frank, who was an exterminator and the other woman, Becky. She had one lung, but her bucket list was going down with the whales. God damn it, she was going down. So she had, she chain smoked, and she had those air tubes up her nose. Oh, my God. Yeah. So that was what was on that ship. And I'd fluctuate between the two.

That was magnificent. And at the end, they all hugged each other and wept. I love that. The healers did heal somebody who fell down the stairs. And they all put their hands over him and went, and I was so embarrassed for them. I thought, but the guy did suddenly get up and walk. So the Americans hugged him.

It was like a great film. It was a great feature film. Well, it would have been great if some documentary cameras were there for it. They don't follow me anymore. They should do. How was I'm a celebrity, speaking of cameras following you? Oh, well, there were no cameras as far as I was concerned. You don't see any.

So that's what's so bizarre. It was the best time I ever had in my life because I wasn't on film as far as I was concerned. I just had this relationship with everybody. And that's my happy place, is living in a commune. Yeah. That's what I love. And the lack of food or coffee didn't bother you? That bothered me a lot.

Oh, yeah. But I lost a stone. Okay. Yeah. That bothered me a lot. Right. But then the people are so entertaining. And they're always around.

So I never got bored. Like you'd have different people that would make you, Tom, who I saw yesterday, heaven. We would do Jane Austen together. And then those two young guys, Ging and H, who I adored. And I kept saying, I say it in my show, how come you guys like me so much? Is it because I'm so cool or very attractive?

And they said, no, because you remind us of our nan. That was sad. That was a sad moment. I loved the dynamic between you and Ginge. Yeah. It was great. Yeah, I'm seeing him next week. Are you?

Yeah. Well, you're just going to hang out? Oh, yeah. We just have things to talk about. Okay. You did Fergie, didn't you? He's in the film too. Yeah.

She's in the show. Sarah Ferguson. And what did you make of Sarah Ferguson? Wait till you hear what she says in this. I mean, she hangs herself now for what she did later. She claims that she had some injection for weight loss that made her crazy. And so that's why she's not responsible for what she does. In the show?

In my show. the show I'm touring, we have footage of her. You know, I felt really sore for her when we saw it, but now I don't. Because that's the desperate end of fame. Yeah. At any cost. At any cost. It's like a kind of a dog that's just mounted your leg and will not stop.

And that's what she was like. Yeah. Okay. And she claims now. No, she claimed in my film because she had done something stupid back then too. Yeah, well, she was always doing. stupid things. Always because she's over-excited by it. Yeah. She's over-excited. She has no talent. And yet, like Amelda, she wants to be near it. Yeah. She wants to be near fame. Yeah. That's called something else.

That's got a name when you just want to be, you know, behind the shooting star. And you're glomming their fame through them. But imagine the tragedy of your shooting star being Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. Yeah. Imagine that. Well, he had dinner with us when we were filming back then. Well, no, he was dumb. What more can I say? He made some fish fingers and burnt him. I mean, how hard is it? He burned the fish fingers.

And what was the, because I imagine you're very good at reading people's vibes. There was no vibe. There was no, vibe is the wrong word. It was like, asked me what the doorknob's like. I don't know. And he was a, a charmless man. It was like a, there was like some solid matter in the room, but I couldn't really distinguish what it was.

It was the man then. known as Prince Andrew. The man was formerly known as Prince. If you were able to follow someone around and do that 90s style immersion documentary. You couldn't do it. Well, you couldn't do it, but if you were, like let's go into Dream World here, okay, who would you want to currently do that program with? Putin. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? I mean, if I had anybody, and if I had a week with him, you know, 10 minutes, he's just going to spew it out again. Yeah. But it's despots that are interesting.

Yeah. It's just my favorite line of the, it's despots that interest me now. What question do you wish people would ask you? Because you do these conversations the whole time. And we all ask you about mental health and we ask you about the shows. But what do you wish that you were asked more of? Oh, that's a, that's a tricky one. Well, I don't find anything I say interesting.

Nothing you say ever is interesting. I don't think so, no. I mean, I'm just burbling out loud what's going through my mind. And I try to get it out of my mind as fast as I can. So, um, what stills your mind? Meditation. Meditation. Yeah.

Oh, definitely. It doesn't stop the thoughts. It's just that they're more like, um, below them. And they just wash along the top, you know, they do what they do. If you get caught in one of them, as a matter of fact, it's making me feel better now. If you get caught in one of the stories, you're caught, you know, and you're ruminating. Yeah. But if you just duck your head down and let them pass, it's quite liberating.

Take a deep breath. Well, it's more complicated than that. But did you ever think, because now you are running retreats? Yeah. And that's, I find that really. I love that. Yeah. I love it because you're giving.

people, you know, I'm still funny, but I try to be, but also you're giving people information. You see their faces going, I didn't realize that. And I give it, I dumb it down, but I give it why in science these particular exercises work. It's like explaining how to do a sit-up, but you get a six-pack. So the same with meditation. It isn't just you become a better breather or your eyes are shut and you've got a stupid grin on your face, on your gluten-free cushion. But something is happening in your brain with the exercise. But I explain it rather than just saying, and these are the results. How do you do it? You actually tell them how do you do it and what mechanisms are, you know, reflected in the brain. You're giving them the proper practical

how to do it. The neuroscience, which you studied. Yeah. And then they go, oh, I see why I'm doing this, because we have very little time in the day to add something else. But the way I teach you, You don't have to sit, but you can do, you know, you can be on the bus. You can be waiting for something. You can be on the phone. You can still do the exercise. Okay. And there's evidence of what actually is happening.

So how long have you been doing the meditation? Well, since Oxford, about 13 years. But I've done it for longer than that. Okay. Yeah. And that's the tool. And that really is what I like. That's my happy place.

Do you think you would ever imagine a world where you would allow your to live in your happy place and no longer have to kind of engage with the fear of needing to always work. Well, that's work too, teaching people. Yeah, but you've made something you love your work. Yeah. And that's different, isn't it? That's different.

I think this is a reward you get when you've done your duty. then you can do something you find really intriguing. And changing people. That's the ultimate. I was with Don French once and people were coming up and asking for selfies and blah, you know, all this. And, you know, it's a pain in the ass sometimes. But I like that somebody comes up to me and says,

you know what you taught me? That really changed things. And I thought that one thing was more rewarding than having 10,000 people saying, you make me laugh. I mean, you still have to make them laugh. once you get, you know, once you teach them or, you know, you pass on some knowledge, that's to me the reward. Okay. Can I ask you about people pleasing and? Oh, yeah, because you wrote that book. Well, I've written a book about people pleasing, but you said something which really, it landed deep in my heart.

Lots of things you said, Ruby, have landed deep in my heart. But you said that being well liked is like heroin. Yeah. Well, being famous. Yeah. And for me it is because I try to fill the holes, you know, with people. That's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my drug. Because as long as they're talking, you still exist. Because I feel quite invisible. But when there's somebody in front of me and I can feel their agency, then I can feel on the reflection of them. That's on a bad day. Okay. How many bad days do you get a word? week or a month or do we put them in a year? No, I don't get it a lot. But when the depression starts to knock on the door, that's the feeling. This is not me healthy as a really extraordinary human being. And great to be around. And I like to have her living in my brain. It's just when she starts to get ill. Then we start to get those, you know, grabbing people to help using them as

lifeboats. Yeah. Yeah. Using people for validation. Yeah. Yeah. Instead. of realizing that you don't you, the person that you need for validation is there inside you really. Yeah, completely. She is you. Yeah. But you feel that that, you feel that that is knocking on the door right now. I don't feel really well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. But it could last an hour. Yeah. That's the thing. That's why people think you're making it up because it can come and go. Yeah, yeah. It can stick. It could have blips. It can come and form. I, did you know what, that is, that actually makes me feel a bit, oh, like, that's, that, because I, when I was in my 20s and my early 30s, I would, I would make it stick around

because I would, the only tools I had to deal with depression or OCD were alcohol and drugs. And that obviously, that gets you stuck in an episode, even though you think it's going to sort of drink it away. Now I don't do that anymore. And I do sometimes. feel there can be you know when they talk about four seasons in one day but I can go through that in a mood and like you say I feel oh this is terrible this is the worst I'm ever I've ever felt and that can be in the morning and then it passes by the evening but then because of that because of that moving weather I almost discount how bad I just think oh you're stupid do you know Like, oh, you're just, you're just a flippant, flighty person.

That's what my brain says to me. Oh, really? Yeah. Like, I don't take myself serious. I don't take that illness and that bad weather as seriously actually. Like, I'm always trying to find ways to undermine the power of the men, like undermine how profound actually mental illness has been in my life. Yeah. I don't know if I'm making any sense when I say that.

It's almost like, no, you're not really unwell. Well, that's, we're the, we're the most stigmatizers rather than the stigmatized. It's because we don't believe it. Other people don't either. Yeah. Because you're talking about something mental. Where does it show? I mean, do you have a lump? Is something broken? So people think, come on, pull yourself together. And there is no together. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

I do that too now. In the second half, I let the audience talk. And I've had people in there with cancer and depression. And I've always said which one's worse than they always say it's a depression. Because there's no pity. You know, you're not wearing a headscarf. Yeah. But the pulling yourself together, do you think that's what performing on stage is your version of pulling yourself together?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because everything has to, yeah. You have to physically be there. to mentally be there. That's to me the sport and everybody's at home. And for that hour or two hours, you're very at peace with yourself. Because everything is, you know, all the cells, all the Nervins are driving to, I guess, people please. Yeah. And people are pleased. And people are

pleased. So you're getting instant results. When you see people laugh, is that like, that's a high? You know, I don't think that. I think I'm so grateful. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think, whoa, am I good? No, but you'll think, oh, I'm making them happy. Yeah. Isn't that what's at the heart of it? I guess so.

I guess you don't feel so selfish, even though it is an act of selfishness. It is. You know, I remember I worked in a refugee camp and I said, they said, you know, are you into disaster porn? You know, you just want to see that or, ha ha, I showed up. Look at me. And somebody else said, yeah, but at least you showed up. you know, they don't care what your motive is. You got there. Yeah. Same thing with being on stage. You know, you did it. Yeah.

As selfish as it is. But if you can manage to marry something that is selfish for you that it serves other people, you've won. I guess so. You have won. Like, what a genius thing. Like, if the selfish thing that works for you really works and helps other people, then I think you've got it nailed. Do you? Yeah. Oh, see, I'm leaving very happy now. Yeah. I'm fine. I have no more depression. Yeah. I've solved it. Yeah. I'm fine. I'm skipping out of here. No, but I think you serve and you serve a purpose and it is really important. You know, we put on these masks, don't we? Every day, you know, and you say,

look, there's a fuck of a lot behind this mask I put on, you know, and you talk about what that is. And you do it in a funny way. And that's joyous. And that's fucking brilliant. because if we didn't laugh about this shit, we would all be in the mental hospital all the time, Ruby. Yeah. And I need rooms when I need rooms. Yeah. So maybe that's why I'm keeping people out so that I can have my own suite. There you go. That's it.

Okay. So if you want to go and see Ruby, she's doing 100 and... 40, 170 shows. She's 170 shows. No, I will do 123 by the time it's done, but just now it's 35. Okay. And what's on your rider, Ruby? Nothing. Oh, come on. I have nothing. Check it out. I have never asked for anything. I mean, I'll ask for water. I swear to God, I don't ask for anything. I think you should ask for more. But what else? What could you give me? Alcohol. Do you drink alcohol? No. I mean, I'll drink a martini. But you couldn't do it before.

No. But after? I used to drink like a maniac. Did you? Yeah. I billion. binge drink. Yeah. But I wasn't an alcoholic. Okay. I wanted to be because I always wanted to go to A.A. Why don't you think you're an alcoholic? Because I think there's lots of, when I listen to you talk about resentment and drinking poison and all of that stuff and thinking that everyone's out to get you, that to me is, that's what I'm like.

And that is, that's a very alcoholic thing. Do you drink now? No. Oh, see, I can drink. Yeah. I can't drink. Yeah. No, I can't drink.

I think that makes a difference. That's probably quite an important Qualifier for No, I can't, I can't drink I couldn't have one martini Oh yes, yeah, I can't Oh no I wouldn't want to have one martini

Well no, I don't have one either But I don't do it a lot Okay, yeah I don't think it was alcoholism I think I just got a little When I drink I couldn't taste That I'd already had something So I'd just keep throwing it back

And I thought I was hilarious And people come up to me and say, you were so boring. You've repeated your stories over and over again. You'd finish it and start again. And I went to AA and I said that was the problem. They said, get out of here. Did they? They said, that's not, you know, come back when you eat your pets.

But I really wanted, I started frazzled. I won't go on about it. But I started my charity because I wanted to have some meeting place, a community where I'd meet like-minded people. Well, it is like AA, but for a broader speech. sort of depression and anxiety, right? Yeah. Well, not everybody's depressed. It's just that people want to talk.

And they don't want to talk bullshit. They want to talk under the radar. They want to get deep down. They want to get. And so I have this, I might as well say it, this charity frazzle cafe where you come every day if you want. You can meet groups of 12. And people just, you know, speak. They speak what we all want to say.

But they do it with no shame. And you can be anonymous and it's free. How do people find out about Fresel? They go on Freselcafe.org. And there's people all day, every day, including Christmas, that you join a group. So it's not just me, it's facilitators who have groups. And you just come on and some people have been on for eight years. That's so lovely.

I run it every Tuesday night, by the way. So April 13th, every two weeks I run it at 5.30. And those are online? Those are online. And we have about, I, I, a bigger group. But every time I do it, and I've been doing it for eight years, similar to your charity, every time I do it, I go, oh, this is like visiting home. You get the feeling maybe people had when they had religion, because you meet people from all over the world on mine,

and you see them speaking just every line is perfect because it's straight from the heart. And it makes me feel like, oh, I've done something wonderful. You have done something wonderful. No, with that I have. No, but you have. And I think that it's really important to remember that. There is absolutely a world where you could have just, I don't know, gone off and, you know, had a luxury life with your family and, you know, and you have chosen instead to be of service. And I think that is magnificent. And I'm really grateful for that. And I'm really grateful that you came and shared the Life of Ruby with the Life of Briny.

Thank you. Guys, I can't believe we had Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. And she is my queen and she is sharp and brilliant and funny and honest. Please come and tell me what you thought of this conversation over on Instagram at at Life of Briney pod. Ruby will be back on Friday for our special bonus episode, The Life of You, where she'll be sharing the things that keep her grounded when life feels completely. completely unpredictable. In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe, follow, rate and rave about us to all your friends, because it really does help. But most of all, keep being you. I'll see you next time.