Actress and comedian Miranda Hart says she hopes Gen Z realise fame is ‘meaningless’ as she revealed the intense pressure of thinking she had to maintain her own.
And fresh from filming the second series of Celebrity Traitors, she said she had suffered a relapse of the chronic health condition that has blighted her life for over a decade.
The 53-year-old star was only diagnosed with Lyme Disease and ME after suffering severe bouts of ill health which eventually left her house and often bed bound.
She told girls at her old school, Downe House near Newbury, where she was a contemporary of presenter Clare Balding, that her illness had made her realise what was really important.
Admitting she had become ‘sucked into the whole productivity machine’ when she was writing series two and three of her ‘unexpected’ hit comedy Miranda, she said she had to ‘find the joy again’ by giving herself space and ‘letting go of any jealousy or comparison or need’.
Watched by husband Richard Fairs, 60, who she married in 2024 after a whirlwind romance, she explained: ‘I remember thinking, “I must maintain my fame.” I don’t want to be one of those people where they say, “I wonder what happened to her?” And it took me years to think “what a load of bulls***!”‘
‘I’d been told that that was important. It’s taken me years but I’ve realised fame is meaningless,’ she told the school’s annual Education Conference this week.
And talking about her recovery when she had ‘the most acute nostalgia’ for her happy schooldays at the all-girls boarding school, where the Princess of Wales was once a pupil, she said: ‘I never once drifted to memories of taking a bow on stage or accepting an award or dressing up to be judged on a red carpet or the pressure of writing comedy or lack of freedom of going for a walk without being asked for a selfie that the ridiculousness and many other things about fame bring.
Miranda Hart has said she recently suffered a relapse of a chronic health condition which blighted her life for over a decade
‘I really hope that Gen Z and below are starting to know that fame cannot bring happiness!’
Seated as she spoke because she said she needed to after a ‘slight relapse’, she said she would give all of her success up ‘in a heartbeat’ for what really matters.
Laughing as she was asked about being a fan favourite as a future Dr Who – she said it was ‘a marvellous idea’ but she didn’t enjoy ’15-hour days filming getting up at 5am’, alluding to the famously long days on Celebrity Traitors, which she has just returned from filming.
