British Actress Miranda Hart Reveals She Was ‘Bedbound for Years’ from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
The actress revealed she developed myalgic encephalomyelitis after contracting Lyme disease on Monday, Oct.14
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Miranda Hart at he 75th year off the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Oct. 12, 2024Miranda Hart is opening up about her health journey.
Speaking to U.K. outlet The Times in an interview published Monday, Oct. 14, the British actress — who recently revealed she got married at 51 — said that she was "bedbound for years" after her undiagnosed Lyme disease progressed into myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
Hart — who reduced Selena Gomez to tears on the The Graham Norton Show on Friday, Oct. 11 by praising her My Mind & Me docuseries as inspirational — told the outlet that she was 15 when she first became unwell before suffering a “total collapse” after the final series of her sitcom Miranda in 2015.
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Miranda Hart on 'The Graham Norton Show'Related: British Actress Miranda Hart Reveals She Just Got Married at 51: 'Thrilled to Be a Young Bride'
Hart said that the condition “played havoc with my immune system,” adding that she had “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.”
“I was housebound and bedbound for years,” she said of the time she concluded her sitcom. “I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a social life. I didn’t have any responsibilities or identities,” she told The Times.
She also recalled how she told medical professionals that she was “leading a half-life, a very debilitated life, but with no understanding of why.”
ME is described as causing extreme fatigue that lasts for at least six months, per the Mayo Clinic. While Hart told The Times that she has regained some of her health, the actress added that she has “not fully” recovered and has learned to “live with fatigue and ghastly symptoms.”
Despite this, she said she believes she “will get better.”
“I’ve only recently been out in the world again,” she told The Times.
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Hart’s comments come after she thanked Gomez, 32, for making her Apple TV+ documentary on The Graham Norton Show.
"When I saw your documentary on Apple [about] your illness struggles, I was thinking, 'Do I share?' You know, 'Is this something I should do?' Because it feels quite vulnerable," Hart told an emotional Gomez, 32, about her reaction to the documentary, which touched on everything from body image issues to painful lupus flare-ups and Gomez' ongoing mental health journey.
"I watched [Gomez's] documentary, and I just thought, 'Absolutely yes.' And that's what kept me writing,” she continued. ”So the fact I'm on this show with you … To witness somebody in the pain that I was in for different conditions. But we know what a chronic condition is like and it's always rumbling there, and I know what it's like in a very different way."
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