Ruby Wax was never "comfortable" with her fame.
The 66-year-old comedienne – who has son Max, 31, and daughters Madeline, 26, and Marina, 26, with her husband Ed Bye – found the height of her fame in the 90s, and has said it wasn’t easy being a star, because she always worried her status would be "taken away" from her.
She said: "The air was extremely jagged then. I wasn’t comfortable ever, because I was scared it would be taken away. You never think, ‘Oh, I’ve arrived.’ "
The ‘Ruby Wax Meets’ star insists she felt "like a sham" when she began to receive privileges like upgrades on flights.
Of the first time she noticed her life had changed, she added: "I guess the first time you get into a restaurant, or get an upgrade on a flight, but I was still never comfortable because it made me feel like a sham. To be getting away with things like that. Then when it stops it’s even more painful than having never had it. You notice the lack of privilege so hard. It can be bad for your health."
And Ruby is thankful she didn’t have to contend with social media as a celebrity in the 90s, as although she uses Twitter now, she thinks the overuse of the sites is a "great tragedy".
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror newspaper’s Notebook magazine, she said: "Maybe [I would’ve struggled more if social media had been around]. I do Twitter now, but it always starts out as me publicising my book or a tour and ends up as, ‘Love me, please love me!’ Everybody does that and it’s sad. Paris Hilton said the first thing she does each morning is check if she has lost any followers. If that isn’t great tragedy, I don’t know what is."