Miranda Hart’s painful reality with illness as Celebrity Traitors marks her iconic return to TV

The Celebrity Traitors season two marks Miranda Hart’s first foray back into the world of show business after a “debilitating” battle with Lyme disease and ME. 

Though we, of course, grew to love Miranda Hart on iconic TV shows like Miranda, she hasn’t been as prolific as she once was, and for good reason. Though she’s “not felt well” since she was 15, Miranda ended up “housebound and bedbound for years” later in life. 

“I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a social life. I didn’t have any responsibilities or identities,” she said at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. 

Credit: BBC

I didn’t realise quite how debilitating Miranda Hart’s health was 

Though obviously a horrendously difficult position to be in, both physically and mentally, Miranda Hart has long used her platform to share her battles with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and Lyme disease. 

“I lost my joy and know that I hadn’t enjoyed my career in the way that I knew I could have if I hadn’t been ill,” she said at the festival. 

It’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone fighting a chronic illness, but Miranda described one aspect of it as like having “flu all the time.”

She explained: “Some very clever experts finally sort of joined the dots back to when I first started feeling unwell was when I was living in a Lyme hotspot in Virginia in America, when my father worked out there.

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“So, and I remember getting the flu there, which was really peculiar, and I didn’t recover for ages from it, and we just joined the dots. So, I lived with a reactivated Lyme since I was 15, which then plays havoc on your immune system, disorders your immune system, then any other virus you get, it’s very hard to recover from that, so other viruses get reactivated, then shingles got reactivated in me, and later it just…

“So, it’s like having flu all the time. With flu you sort of sleep, but you feel like you’ve never slept. It’s that, but yet you’re being told there’s nothing wrong and you’ve got to carry on. It’s not fun.”

Though Lyme disease, which she said was caused by her ME, was hard enough, Miranda also dealt with difficulties in the healthcare sector. Namely, doctors not believing her and urging her to take a few weeks off work. 

“I was told, countlessly, for sort of decades, because I hadn’t felt well for since teenage years, that it was just anxiety and stress,” she said, adding in a different interview with Channel 4, “All anyone wants is to be heard, accepted, loved and seen… and when you’re not – particularly in a medical situation – it’s the worst.”

Thankfully, Miranda was able to get the help she needed, and though recovery is never as simple as it seems, she is in a much better place now. 

“I’m still living with elements of ME, and that brings fatigue and pain to manage, but I have come to a point where I feel well enough to step out,” she said before heading into The Celebrity Traitors. “The joy of mucking about on television again will hopefully outweigh some of the challenges.”

For all the latest news and drops about The Celebrity Traitors, like The Holy Church of The Traitors on Facebook. 

Featured image credit: BBC and This Morning/YouTube