I'm A Celebrity 2025: Ruby Wax's secret jungle advantage; 'baseless' affair allegations; struggles with 'insane' parents
Ruby has completed a solo survival show before…I’m A Celebrity fans have already started to love comedian and mental health advocate Ruby Wax since she was revealed to take part in this year’s series.
The star, who found fame in the 1980s, opened up about doing the series in a recent interview.
“Meeting everybody, that’s what I’m excited about,” she told The Sun at the airport, before admitting she’s hoping to get under the skin of her fellow campmates. “The people are what’s exciting, to pick them apart and find out what makes them so interesting. Or not.”
The 72-year-old comic is one of this year’s biggest signings for the ITV reality juggernaut hosted by Ant and Dec.
And with a storied TV career, a string of therapy qualifications and even her own survival show under her belt, she might just be the most prepared contestant the jungle has ever seen.
Who is Ruby Wax?
Ruby Wax first made her name on British television in the 1980s. She shot to fame with Girls on Top in 1985, performing alongside comedic powerhouses Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Tracey Ullman. The ITV sitcom only ran for one season, but it launched Ruby’s TV career.
She became best known for her sharp-tongued, quick-fire interview style in a string of her own hit BBC programmes, including The Full Wax, Ruby Wax Meets and The Ruby Wax Show. Ruby grilled the likes of Tom Hanks, Pamela Anderson, Imelda Marcos, and even OJ Simpson.
She was also a script editor on Absolutely Fabulous, where she made two cameo appearances. Although her persona was often seen as brash and combative, Ruby now says that was all nerves.
“I looked quite aggressive and pushy, and I think it was just my nerves,” she told ITV. “I am not aggressive. It’s just the way I talk.”
Why was Ruby Wax awarded an OBE?
In 2013, Ruby earned a Master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Oxford University.
She’s since been appointed a Visiting Professor in Mental Health Nursing at the University of Surrey, and in 2015 was awarded an OBE for services to mental health.
How old is Ruby Wax?
Born April 19, 1953, in Evanston, Illinois, Ruby is 72 years old, making her the oldest contestant in this year’s jungle line-up.
Has Ruby Wax been in the jungle before?
No, but she’s not a complete jungle novice either. In 2023, she starred in Ruby Wax: Cast Away, a solo survival experiment filmed off the coast of Madagascar.
Ruby Wax on Cast Away
While Ruby has never set foot in the I’m A Celebrity jungle before, she’s no stranger to survival.
In the BBC show Ruby Wax: Cast Away, Ruby spent 10 days alone on a remote island in Madagascar. Armed with a camera and her wits, she documented everything from foraging for food to withstanding torrential storms.
Although she admits that it was a carefully planned documentary, it gave her a taste of jungle life and the psychological toll of isolation. “I’ve been on desert islands before,” she told The Sun. “So this is nothing.”
Fans think her unique combo of wit, survival experience and psychotherapy training might give her a serious edge. As one social media user posted: “She’s a professional psychologist now, though. She’ll know how to ride it out, I think.”
Difficult childhood and mental health journey
Ruby has never shied away from discussing her struggles. In an episode of Grounded with Louis Theroux, she revealed: “My mother was insane, and my father was insane. I use that lovingly. I thought they were normal.”
At 11, she was once left alone in South America with just $16 after missing a flight, wearing only a swimsuit. Her childhood was marked by chaos and emotional abuse, with Ruby recalling her mother chasing her down the street, screaming.
She didn’t recognise her depression until her thirties. “It’s not sadness. You’re gone. Nobody’s home,” she said. After a severe episode in 2003, Ruby decided to study therapy herself. That journey led to her Master’s at Oxford and a new mission: to destigmatise mental illness.
In 2022, she experienced a relapse while staying in a Yorkshire monastery. “I thought I was possessed by the devil,” she told HELLO! magazine in 2024. She admitted herself to a psychiatric clinic and later transformed the experience into a bestselling memoir and stage show titled I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was.
What has Ruby Wax said about her parents?
Speaking on an old episode of Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast in January this year, the TV star opened up on her relationship.
She said: “They were torturous. Both of them. In my mother, innocently, and my dad, on purpose. He would play mind games. He would keep telling me how rich I was and it turned out I wasn’t at all. But he kept me at home until I was in my late 30s.
“I thought we were really rich. And every time he would do something vicious, I would write down a number saying he owed me a certain amount. If there was a beating, I charged a lot.”
As for her mum, Ruby explained that she was “hysterical” but they “didn’t know why”.
Ruby explained that they were fleeing from Europe because of the war. But ultimately they “brought the war into our kitchen”.
Recalling things her father had said, Ruby said: “He was mean. ‘Who’s going to marry you’, ‘Ruby you’r an idiot’. It never stopped. Even when I did well, he would say, ‘I saw you in the play, your teeth were so shiny’. I can’t make that up.”
She ‘did not love’ her parents
When Jamie asked if she “loved” her parents despite everything, Ruby confidently told him: “No. I did not.”
She added: “I do in a primal way, the way an animal does. But I didn’t really know who they were. I’m sure they were charming when they were younger, and my mother was the most beautiful woman in Vienna. But no, I didn’t know who they were. And I had nobody to compare notes to because I didn’t have brothers or sisters.”
When asked if she was upset at her feelings towards her parents, Ruby laughed as she said: “No. Because that means when they die, you’re not really upset.”
Ruby went on to admit she thinks the bottom line was that her dad may have “hated” women. And if she was a boy, their relationship could have been different.
While she may not have loved her parents, Ruby admitted to Jamie that they were both “obsessed” with her.
She said: “Oh they did love me. They were obsessed, as a parent. But I think they were disappointed that I wasn’t beautiful or smart. That I wasn’t going to be anything.”
Before this interview, back in 2017, Ruby appeared in an episode of Who do You Think You Are, where she discovered more about her family’s life. And how they fled Vienna at the time of the Nazi invasion, after her father was imprisoned for his Jewish faith.
However, Ruby was shocked by what she heard, angry that she didn’t know much about their lives.
She said in the episode: “The parents I had when I was growing up do not relate at all to what I am finding out. I just thought they were monsters.”
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Is Ruby Wax still married?
Yes, Ruby is still married.
The star has been married three times. Her first marriage was to theatre administrator Andrew Porter. They tied the knot in 1976 and divorced in 1980. In 1981, she tied the knot with TV producer Trevor Walton; however, they split in 1986.
In 1988, Ruby then got married to TV producer and director Ed Bye, whom she’s still married to today. Together they had three children, Max, Madeleine, and Marina.
Speaking about Ed, she has said: “He is selfless, he sacrifices a lot. Ed is normal, he can make me laugh and he’s brought balance to my life.”
However, the pair have been hit by split rumours over the years. Ruby has, naturally, hit back at them, though. It was claimed that Ruby, then 48, was having an affair with a 32-year-old internet entrepreneur.
She told the Standard in 2012: “Don’t believe any of those stories about our marriage break-up. Ed and I are very much together – it’s just that we had a nanny who turned out to be insane. On day three, she told me she’d been abused by her stepfather. Ed called up the nanny agency to complain. And that’s when the trouble started in earnest.
“I’d had years of great nannies. But, sometimes, people are jealous; I don’t know why. Anyway, when I fired this girl, she was really inflamed. What she claimed was that I’d had an affair. However baseless the accusation, you can only imagine the tension it produced with Ed and me. She invented the whole thing. But that’s all in the past now, and Ed and I are stronger for it.”
Ruby Wax on I’m A Celebrity
Ruby is fully aware of the challenge that lies ahead. “It hasn’t actually sunk in that I am doing this,” she told ITV. “But I like doing adventurous things. It will be nice for people to get to know the real me. You can’t hide in the jungle.”
She’s also packing a sensational bra for the jungle shower. “I’ve been working out, as I don’t want to show my body the way it is. But I have a sensational bra!”
On her phobias, she declares she isn’t scared of anything, but does hesitate slightly at the mention of confined spaces and rats. “I’ve never been confined to a small space, so I don’t know. What small space would I be put in? Do they have elevators in the jungle?”
However, despite her previous experience, Ruby doesn’t see herself as a frontrunner. “I can’t imagine it, I haven’t got one of those minds that pictures things, so I don’t know. I can’t picture anything.”
We’ll just have to wait and see to see how Ruby gets on on the show.
Catch Ruby Wax on I’m A Celebrity this Sunday (November 16) from 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
