Ruby Wax has claimed she left the BBC because she "turned 50" and it was "not allowed".
The 70-year-old TV star had been interviewing a host of big names such as Donald Trump, Pamela Anderson and Goldie Hawn for her BBC Two show 'Ruby Wax Meets...' when her show was shelved in 1998, and Louis Theroux later landed an interview series on the channel.
And she has now alleged that bosses at the broadcaster offered her a game show instead, but she rejected the opportunity.
When asked by Kate Garraway on 'Life Stories' - which is set to air on Wednesday night (09.08.23) on ITV1 - why her TV shows "dried up", Ruby told the host: "I turned 50 and that's not allowed. It's an age thing of course and it was a man who took my job - and it's not Louis Theroux, he's a really nice man.
"Whoever, I will not mention names, said, 'We want you to do a game show.'
"I said, 'I can be a really good interviewer,' and they said 'uh uh', so I left town. But that's OK because I wouldn't have got an OBE or gone to Oxford so I thank them all."
Elsewhere during the interview, Ruby explained to the 'Good Morning Britain' host that her parents could be "violent" with one another, and claimed that she would often end up in the middle of it all.
She says: "They took the war from Europe and brought it to the kitchen.
"They slung these verbal grenades at each other and I was in the middle, especially because I was born into the land of the free and the brave and I could have a really great life, and they were nipped in the bud at 22, so they wanted to make it hard (for me).
"They were pretty violent with each other (and me), you’d have the s*** knocked out of you."
'Kate Garraway's Life Stories' airs on ITV1 on Wednesday night at 9pm.
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