Who has Ruby Wax interviewed? From Madonna to Donald Trump…
RUBY Wax is taking a look back at some of most iconic interviews with the great and the good from her series from the 1990s.
The original series featured a who’s who of A-list celebrities of the day.
Wax describes her meeting with Donald Trump as a ‘car crash’ interviewCredit: BBC
Who has Ruby Wax interviewed?
We take a look back at some of the iconic people Wax met over the years – and some were far from successful.
Donald Trump
Wax’s 2000 interview with the future US President was an example of car crash TV and a disaster.
A frosty atmosphere began to develop when she quizzed the 75-year-old businessman about his presidential ambitions, which Ruby admitted she had assumed were a joke.
“He literally threw me off his plane at 33,000 feet, which is tricky,” she claimed. “He threw my crew out at Arkansas. We had no plans of going to Arkansas.”
She added: “That was a car crash. Bad interviews still make good TV, but I just think it’s appalling, and it’s what not to do.”
Madonna
Wax said her interview with Madonna was her ‘most miserable showbiz experience’
Wax said her interview with Madonna was her ‘most miserable showbiz experience’
Wax branded her 1994 interview with Madonna as her “most miserable showbiz experience”.
She said in 2013: “I thought we were going to bond but she hated me on sight.”
“We were setting up the cameras and she was saying, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want that camera, I want that camera.’ I got nervous and I was asking dumb questions and then she got up and left.”
Wax added: “She left her handbag so I rifled through it and found some of her underpants and put them on my head and started doing some comedy. Madonna looked into the room and saw it. She has never called me since.
“As for her pants, they were like a piece of dental floss with some cotton and some frills.”
OJ Simpson
Wax tried to get OJ Simpson to confess but wasn’t successful
Wax tried to get OJ Simpson to confess but wasn’t successful
Wax described OJ Simpson as “the most complicated person on earth” after her 1998 interview.
Simpson agreed to be interviewed in a white van similar to his Ford Bronco in the infamous high-speed, post-murder chase with cops.
Throughout Simpson remains blank and detached from it all.
Wax tried to get a confession from him but it’s in vain.
She does though manage to ask the question: “Do you think that’s weird, that you got famous as a murderer?”
Carrie Fisher
Ruby Wax and Carrie Fisher became life-long friends
Ruby Wax and Carrie Fisher became life-long friendsCredit: INSTAGRAM/RUBY WAX
Wax and the Star Wars actress became great friends following the interview in 1994.
In an article for the Huffington Post, Wax wrote: “Who she actually was, was greater than a trillion Star Wars, she was a comic genius.
“Like a composer hears notes in his/her head when composing, she would imagine words and phrases, craft them to perfection and reel out daisy chains of comic jewels.”
She added: “We’d often lie in bed together (not sexual) she’d call me ‘mommy’ and read out scrawls from her notebooks and I’d just lie there thinking, ‘how lucky am I to have this woman as a friend?’ To the end of my life I’ll never get over that.”
Goldie Hawn
Wax conducted part of her interview with Goldie Hawn in a Jacuzzi
Wax conducted part of her interview with Goldie Hawn in a JacuzziCredit: BBC
Wax wasn’t afraid of firing off a cheeky double entendre as her interview with Hawn revealed.
The interview with Goldie Hawn switches from a Jacuzzi to a hotel bedroom, which brings a revelation about husband Kurt Russell’s amatory prowess.
Wax asked: “Did you train him or did he come like that?”
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson quoted from Hamlet in her interview with Wax
Pamela Anderson quoted from Hamlet in her interview with WaxCredit: BBC
The interview with the Baywatch Star surprised many viewers in 1996.
Pamela Anderson recites a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet before simulating sex with Wax in the back of a limo.
Tom Hanks and Jean-Claude Van Damme
Wax interviewed Hollywood A-lister Tom Hanks in 1997
Wax interviewed Hollywood A-lister Tom Hanks in 1997Credit: BBC
A bizarre double interview from the second series in 1997.
Tom Hanks is bribed into meeting Ruby in a London hotel by the producer. Jean-Claude Van Damme fights off a plastic crocodile and saves the lingerie-clad Ruby from death.
Imelda Marcos
Imelda Marcos showed off her show collection to WaxImelda Marcos showed off her show collection to WaxCredit: Lauren Greenfield
Wax described the interview to the Jewish News: “Oh yeah, I hit the jackpot with that interview. We went all the way to the Philippines and I was told that I had just 10 minutes with her.
“But I was still there four days later. I was just thrilled that she liked me so much. Then finally she said, ‘Do you want to see my shoes?’ She wouldn’t have done that on day one.
“When she showed me the accounts, I thought what kind of world are we in? Like OJ, she was an interesting mind to pick, you know, to figure out what motivates her.”
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
Sarah Ferguson opened up to Wax in a frank interview in 1996
Sarah Ferguson opened up to Wax in a frank interview in 1996Credit: PA
Wax conducted the frank 1996 interview with Sarah Ferguson whilst they were sprawled across the duchess’ chintzy double bed at her then rented home at Kingsbourne, Surrey.
The Duchess opened up saying: “I am so sad, I am just miserable about what happened in the past, but then I can’t look back.
“I look back all the time and I am miserable when I do, but I have to look forward now.
“But if you say: “Gosh, you could have had such a really fantastic life…well, yes, I blew it.”
The Spice Girls
Wax met The Spice Girls just before their European tour in 1998
Wax met The Spice Girls just before their European tour in 1998
Wax caught up with the girl power pop sensation on the eve of their European tour in 1998 and talked to them at their final rehearsals.
Victoria Beckham, then known as Posh Spice, confessed to Wax she didn’t really know who David Beckham was before she met him.
“I went over to him. I said to him, ‘are you going to come down and take me out type thing. And he came down to London and took me out,” she told Wax.
Ruby Wax’s interviews in the 1990s were some of the most talked about shows on TV. Before social media and breaking all conventions, Ruby revealed a totally different side to some of the biggest stars, and fallen stars, in the world. These sensational series have never been repeated and Ruby has never watched them back – until now.
When Ruby Wax Met … review – excruciating outpourings from OJ Simpson, Donald Trump and more
From a menacing Trump to OJ Simpson trying to stab her with a banana, Wax looks back at her interview hits and misses – and it makes for jaw-dropping, fascinating TV
When Ruby Wax Met…, BBC2, review: these fascinating celeb encounters had me longing for the chaos of the 90s
Reflecting on her celebrity interviews after 25 years, Ruby Wax was as candid as her subjects, offering a snapshot of fame long before formulaic talk shows and pre-prepared anecdotes
For the first time since her series aired in the 1990s, When Ruby Wax Met… saw the comedian, author and interviewer rewatching her explosive back catalogue of celebrity encounters.
This might have been born of lockdown limitations to new programming (a similar recent show had Brian Cox reflecting on his early work), and the format can be a bit pedestrian, but the 25-year gap has given Wax plenty of time to reassess. She, and her almost unbelievable access to A-listers, turn out to be ripe for a retrospective.
Much has changed since the mid-90s, from our relationship with celebrity to the way we view women on TV. With the rich and famous now so protective over their images, it was a shock to the system to watch an unguarded Goldie Hawn hop into a hotel bed with Wax to ponder female pleasure.
also read :
Who is Ruby Wax’s husband Ed Bye?
ED Bye and Ruby Wax have been married for 33 years and have a rather “unconventional” partnership.
The Brit producer and director has a string of TV hits to his name.
Who is Ruby Wax’s husband Ed Bye?
Edward Richard Morrison Bye was born on June 12, 1955.
He attended Mount House School, a public school in Tavistock, Devon.
Bye married the US comedienne-turned author Ruby Wax in 1988 and they have three children.
He was the co-founder of the TV production company Tall TV in 2011 along with Tim Dawson and Susan Nickson.
Bye has an impressive list of credits to his CV, working on a number of hit TV comedy shows including Red Dwarf, Bottom, The Vicar of Dibley, My Family and French and Saunders.
When Ruby Wax Met, review: the memory of Donald Trump turned this nostalgia trip into a therapy session
When was the last time you watched an entertaining celebrity interview? The most fun to be had these days is watching something like The Graham Norton Show, where Hollywood’s finest perch on the sofa to tell some well-rehearsed anecdotes.
But it wasn’t always this way. In the 1990s, some of the most famous people in the world agreed to be interviewed by Ruby Wax. Her modus operandi was to barge into their space (hotel rooms, usually, but in Donald Trump’s case a private plane with gold-plated toilet fittings) and be loud, funny and exhausting. The one that sticks in the mind involved Wax rummaging in the Duchess of York’s drawers, which were covered in Post-it notes labelling the contents (small white T-shirts, small pink T-shirts): “You couldn’t open a drawer? What, are you too lazy?”
The BBC could treat us all by uploading the interviews to iPlayer, allowing us to dip into the archive. Instead, it has repackaged highlights of them in an odd new series, When Ruby Wax Met… (BBC Two).
The format involves Wax watching old clips and telling us what she thinks now – with the benefit of 25 years’ distance and a degree in cognitive therapy. But what she concentrates on is her own performance – and it was a performance, she explained, a “loud American” persona that she adopted for an earlier comedy show and never dropped. “I turned from the Ugly Duckling into Joan Rivers overnight,” she said. “It was a house style and it worked and it worked and it worked.”
Wax uses the show as a means of self-examination, pointing out that she overdid the shtick in her Trump interview because she was nervous and mortified that he could see straight through her. “I had a terrible father,” she said at one point in an attempt at quick-fire repartee. “I can tell,” Trump replied. “Because you’re angry. You’re aggressive with a smile.” Wax cringed while watching it back: “It’s very uncomfortable when someone doesn’t like you.” She was almost apologetic for her past behaviour.
All good therapy for Wax, I’m sure, but that’s not why viewers were here. We wanted to see the interviews again, not hear the presenter dissecting her own technique. Tom Hanks was a delight, gamely getting in on the joke. Carrie Fisher was whipsmart, OJ Simpson grimly fascinating. And for all of her angst about it, Wax’s encounter with Trump made for great television (and revealed a sweet side to Melania).