For anyone who has ever taken note of Ruby Wax’s illustrious career, it won’t come as a surprise to discover the eccentric star isn’t afraid of living unconventionally.
From editing the cutting edge Absolutely Fabulous to co-creating the 80s sitcom Girls on Top, Ruby has often done things on her own terms – and, as it turns out, that extends to marriage.
While she’s discussed her set up in the past, in a new interview with Davina McCall, Ruby opens up on “hitting bullseye” with hubby Ed Bye, as he lets her live “completely free”, with the star declaring “I’m always apart now. We really are separate lives”.
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Sitting down with Davina for her podcast, Begin Again, the two covered a wide range of topics, eventually landing on Ruby’s marriage. Asked how the pair came together, Ruby shared that it was a by-product of the work she was doing with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
She said, “They put me with French and Saunders and then I was supposed to write for them but we came up with Girls on Top… so we wrote for two years laughing like maniacs and just eating all the time. Never thought it would go on TV and then there it was and my husband directed it”.
Offering a look at just how forward she could be, she added, “I was late in the day. I had two eggs left. So I said, ‘Would you please fertilise me?’ And that’s pretty much my story.”
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Davina then asked why Ruby was the one to pop the question of marriage to Ed, bucking convention. “Men didn’t really go for me. Gay men fall for me, but straight guys didn’t really go. I had to ask. Yeah.”
She also noted that the two getting together had its own, almost sitcom-worthy obstacles to get over.
“He was going out with somebody, but Dawn [French] went up to the girl and went scram and then waited outside the door until we consummated… [she] locked us in a room and said, ‘You’re not coming on until you consummate’. She knew how to take care of me.”
(Image credit: ITV/Shutterstock)
Whether she’s exaggerating for humour or not, Ruby and Ed have been married since 1988, and Ruby said of their relationship today, “We’re good friends. He lets me do what I want. I think that’s hitting bullseye”.
Responding to Davina’s comment about there being “deep love” between them, Ruby answered, “I guess if you let somebody be completely free. I mean, months go by and I’m in different countries because I like the new.
“Some people could call it running, but I love the new, you know, where the environment switches, switches, switches, and you have to make new friends.”
Davina offered up that she also finds spending some time apart from her own husband, Michael Douglas, can be good as it makes her miss him, and Ruby replied, “I’m always apart now. You know, we are really separate lives.
“Separate lives because you grow, you get different interests.”
Earlier in the interview, she also offered another reason she was initially happy to marry Ed – his family didn’t have a history of mental health issues.
Ruby, who has been open about her battle with depression throughout life, told Davina during a wider discussion on taking SSRIs and issues in her family with mental health, “The only reason I married him was because he was clear. I didn’t really like him that much.”
This isn’t the first time Ruby has discussed her unconventional marriage.
In 2021, she told The Sun, “I have my friends, he has his friends. I don’t assume we have the same tastes. It’s understood we both have different careers.
“We’re together but we have different tastes and jobs – and that’s OK. We don’t step on each other’s toes and I don’t really see myself as Mrs Bye.”
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