A NATIONAL treasure on our side of the Atlantic, Miranda Hart was on the cusp of breaking Hollywood after landing a major US movie.
But the 51-year-old comedian has revealed how a debilitating battle with Lyme disease stopped her in her tracks — and led her to lose her independence, her career and even her home.
Joyous Miranda Hart talking about her wedding on The One Show this week[/caption]
Miranda showing off her engagement ring[/caption]
Miranda starring on her sitcom with Sarah Hadland[/caption]
Despite secretly battling with the illness for three decades, her condition was only diagnosed a few years ago when she fell so ill that she collapsed and could barely move.
But her story has had a happy ending because as she fought her symptoms, she met her future husband — when he came to remove health-threatening mould from her home in 2020.
The Sun told yesterday how the pair tied the knot this summer following a whirlwind romance.
And in her new book, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, out today, Miranda explains why she has been off screens for almost a decade.
At one point in 2012 she was attracting almost 12million viewers per episode for her BBC sitcom Miranda.
She also showed off her serious acting chops as Chummy in the hugely successful drama Call The Midwife for three years until 2015.
‘Nothing left to give’
That same year she landed her big break in the States, starring opposite Jason Statham and Jude Law in action-comedy Spy, which was set to open doors for her globally.
However, she became so ill she gave it all up and retreated to her home in Hampshire.
Recalling how it came to a head, she said: “I was alone and had just collapsed on to my sitting room floor. I couldn’t really move, such was the degree of exhaustion.
“Perhaps because I had nothing left to give, I wasn’t scared.
“I was just sad. The emotion from years of wondering how I would make it through the day, of never really knowing why I was so exhausted, enveloped me like a heavy cloak.
“I just lay there. And waited. Either my body would start to come round or I would fade away. There was nothing I could do.”
With her chronic illness worsening and leaving her bed-bound, her career had to be put on hold — just as she felt it was flourishing.
In 2014, she was announced as the host of a rebooted version of The Generation Game, but was too ill to go through with it.
She explained: “It was particularly painful that I had to halt work pretty soon after my first role in a Hollywood movie.
“I had worked so hard to get to a point of securing a lovely agent in the US, who was going to help me find more work as an actor, which felt like such a gift.
Miranda describes meeting her husband as a ‘dollop of goodness’[/caption]
The pair started to have socially-distanced tea dates in her front room during Covid[/caption]
They also spoke regularly on FaceTime and eventually started taking short trips away[/caption]
He then popped the question in West London’s Kew Gardens in January this year[/caption]
“Exciting possibilities that, in the end, I was never able to explore. I was pretty gutted, to say the least.”
Miranda, who was known to millions as the bouncy, bubbly and silly telly star, secretly suffered with fatigue that was so all-consuming that she said she “had to remind my brain how to put one foot in front of the other”.
At her worst point, she confessed: “I would look at a cup of tea on the table and wonder if I had the strength to take a sip.”
Although her condition was clearly deteriorating, it was her struggle to get a diagnosis which made things much worse.
She had suffered for years with bugs and illnesses but was constantly told that tests were coming back clear.
Then one run-in with a doctor left her even more upset, when he described her in medical notes as “TATT.”
She asked what it meant and recalled: “He said, ‘It’s what we put when someone won’t be convinced there’s nothing wrong’.
“ ‘Tired all the time,’ he said.”
Some they found in me included Epstein-Barr, glandular fever, herpes, shingles and some other nasties
Miranda Hart
After arguing with him about it, she admitted: “I ran out in tears.”
But during the first Covid lockdown she finally got the diagnosis she had been searching for — she had been living with a “constant reactivated Lyme disease”.
The bacterial infection is caused by tick bites and leads to symptoms similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME.
It was a shock receiving the news in her late forties, as they believed she had actually first contracted it aged 14 when she was living with her parents in Virginia in the US — an area with a high number of ticks.
Speaking about how her body was affected, Miranda, whose sitcom co-star Sarah Hadland is currently on Strictly Come Dancing, said: “The immune system doesn’t have capacity to cope with other bugs that one gets over the course of a life, meaning that more viruses stay active in one’s body instead of passing through.
“Some they found in me included Epstein-Barr, glandular fever, herpes, shingles and some other nasties.”
However, things got worse before they got better. She was warned over mould poisoning, which can cause problems with the immune system.
In March 2020, her home was tested and she discovered that the toxicity levels were ten times the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organisation.
‘It hurt my heart’
With only two days to go before the Covid lockdown was enforced, she fled her home with just a few essentials to stay at a friend’s empty house.
She said: “Over the years, I lost not only my health but my job, my independence, my friendships, my hobbies, my physical strength, my mental energy and my concentration. Even my house.”
But it was as she was having renovations done to her house to clear the mould spores that she met the man who later became her husband.
That was a refreshing change, as it had been years since she had been on a date — and she had become lonely and desperate for a partner.
Recalling her first interaction with her husband, who she has not publicly named, she said: “I asked why he’d taken the project on, as the whole mould thing was rare and therefore a little complicated.
“He replied, ‘On hearing about your health problems and knowing the building industry, I felt I wanted to do my best for you and protect you’.
“Talk about a dollop of goodness. (And I won’t lie, I did swoon.)”
They went on to have socially-distanced tea dates in her front room, as well as regular conversations over FaceTime as she continued to fight her illness.
Then they went on short trips away as she became healthier. She confessed: “He was very lovely to look at — can we take a moment to breathe in the dashingness of a salt-and-pepper greying hair look on a fine-featured man?”
There were a few reasons why we didn’t know whether the timing was right to become an ‘us’
Miranda Hart
But then he suddenly called things off just as they were falling for each other.
She recalled: “Feelings were deepening. And then we had to take a break.
“There were a few reasons why we didn’t know whether the timing was right to become an ‘us’. It was hard. It hurt my heart.”
But he soon changed his mind and he popped the question in West London’s Kew Gardens in January this year.
Miranda wrote: “We stood still on the bridge overlooking the lake when the silence was pierced as he rather seriously said, ‘Miranda’.
“I turned around, and as I did, he got down on one knee. I don’t remember anything else because I simply burst out crying, apparently saying yes before he had finished the sentence (awkward if he’d been tying a shoelace . . . ).
“I didn’t think a traditional proposal would affect me so.
“But there was someone knowing all my ridiculousness and brokenness and still willing to bend down, look up and commit to loving me and standing by me for the rest of his life.”
Now her fortunes have changed, with love in her life and her health recovering after proper treatment.
During an appearance on The One Show this week, she said: “He’s my best friend.
“We have the best fun and I’m just thrilled to be a young bride at 51.
“The fact that I met someone during a pandemic, during chronic illness, when I couldn’t get out of bed or out of the house . . . it gives hope.”
And on what’s next, she teased: “I’m really keen to get back to some silliness now.
“I miss the studio floor and I miss the laughter.”
