Miranda Hart reveals she was ‘bedbound for years’ before having a ‘total collapse’ following the end of her sitcom as she details battling undiagnosed Lyme disease

Miranda Hart has revealed she was ‘bedridden’ for years after the end of her eponymous sitcom, as she battled a previously undiagnosed Lyme disease.

In a new interview, the 51-year-old actress, who wrapped filming Miranda in 2015, opened up about how she struggled to even leave the house and lived a life devoid of “joy” for most of a date after it ended .

Miranda eventually suffered a ‘total breakdown’ during her 30-year battle with the condition, which e.geventually it became myalgic encephalomyelitis – commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Speak with The timesthe comedian explained, “I lost my joy and know that I wouldn’t have enjoyed my career the way I knew I could have if I hadn’t been sick.

‘For years I was confined to my house and bed. I had no job, I had no social life. I had no responsibilities or identity.”

In the years that followed her critically acclaimed sitcom ending, Miranda added that she had a “total breakdown” and hit “rock bottom” before eventually discovering she was suffering from Lyme disease.

She told how, after years of telling doctors that she was “living a half-life, a very debilitated life, but without understanding why,” she told how experts finally joined the dots and linked her symptoms to a period in which she had time spent in Virginia when she was a teenager.

Although Miranda appeared in the feature film Emma in 2020 and played Miss Hannigan in Annie in the West End in 2017, she has remained relatively out of the spotlight over the past decade.

She added that although she has not yet “fully recovered”, she is optimistic about her future and expressed her relief that there is now “understanding” of her condition.

She said, “I believe I will get better. I only recently went back out into the world. If this was a named condition and you are dealing with it, then I could deal with it. I think the hardest thing about these types of fatigue-based circumstances is the lack of understanding, the lack of never knowing when there is an end date.”

It comes after Miranda gave a rare insight into her long-term health struggles in her new memoir, I Haven’t Been Completely Honest With You, in which she opens up about her plight and the moment she ‘collapsed’ due to ill health.

It comes as Miranda also confirmed she is married, announcing the news of her mystery new husband live on The One Show last night after a flurry of rumours.

While fans know the comedian, 51, as Chummy in Call The Midwife and for her cheerful self-titled sitcom, Miranda has admitted behind closed doors that she desperately told doctors: ‘I feel toxic and poisoned’.

It took 33 years for doctors to discover that Miranda was battling the bacterial infection of Lyme disease, after initially mislabeling her as agoraphobic – an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in certain situations.

She remembers coming out of her doctor’s appointment in tears after they told her she was “TATT” – “Tired all the time” and said, “I just don’t know what to do with you.”

The comic was officially diagnosed during lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme disease when she was 14 after battling nasty flu-like symptoms in Virginia.

She writes: ‘For me, it was the unnerving neurological symptoms I initially developed from Lyme at the age of fourteen that have always been particularly difficult for me to cope with. And they got significantly worse as I approached my forties. Just like the fatigue due to the exhaustion of the cells. Yes, all delicious.’

Of the moment she received her diagnosis, she adds: “I stopped that Zoom call, closed my laptop and sat there, silent and stunned. So many emotions, I was shocked, but I also immediately felt a deep source of sadness and disappointment – for more than thirty years I knew something was wrong. I remembered all the times I had said to different doctors, “I feel toxic and poisoned, or, it’s like I have the flu every day, but I don’t have a fever.”

“(It’s amazing how the body can sometimes literally tell us what’s going on.) I felt the anger rising at the moments I was told I had agoraphobia.

‘I would try to treat it as such when, as it turned out, it was the lack of energy and extreme light and sound sensitivity that caused my body to crash when I went outside in any activity or in a stimulating environment .’

Miranda says she struggled to know how to share the news of her diagnosis with her followers, fearing she would be seen as “complaining” or “just tired all the time.”

But Lyme disease wreaked havoc on her body and she received “endless diagnoses.” Also, fans soon noticed her absence from TV screens.

In 2017, it was revealed that Miranda would not be returning to Call The Midwife, citing a busy work schedule as the reason.

But she later revealed during a stand-up gig in London that she was suffering from ‘ill’ health.

She said at the time: ‘I don’t feel like myself at the moment because I was sick last year and couldn’t exercise.’