Ruby Wax admits she ‘would be dead’ if she hadn’t escaped her ‘abusive’ parents after her father ‘beat her up’ during her traumatic childhood

Ruby Wax has revealed that she “would be dead” had she not left her abusive parents in the US and moved to the UK.

The comedian, 70, admitted that her father Edward and mother Berta Wachs would “hurry verbal grenades at each other” during her troubled childhood, after her Jewish family fled Austria to the US in 1938 over the threat of the Nazi regime.

Speaking on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Ruby described her strict childhood as a “lock-in,” explaining that she would “look out her window with longing” as other kids played in the park.

Adding that she was driven to leave her parents and start a new life in the UK, Ruby settled in Glasgow to study drama.

She said, “They took the war out of Europe and brought it to the kitchen.

“They hurled these verbal grenades at each other and I was in the middle especially because I was born in the land of the free and the brave and I could have a great life and they were nipped in the bud when I was 22 so they wanted to make it difficult.

“They were pretty violent to each other (and to me), you’d beat the sh** out of you.”

Ruby added, “I had ambition and the drive of a Rottweiler to survive. I pushed them (her parents) aside and I was very rebellious, I crawled out the window when I was 18.

“I remember hitchhiking in a private airport to go to San Francisco and then of course I went back (home) and they beat me up, and I went out again.

“I did everything I could to thwart them and they got angrier and angrier.”

She recalled an incident when her father “beat her up” in front of her friends, who were desperately trying to protect her.

Ruby told Kate that it was her anger that led her to escape her traumatic upbringing.

She said, “If I hadn’t had a huge sense of anger I think I would have collapsed, but I had been addicted to anger for a long time, I had to work really hard to get it out of my system.”

“For me it was survival because it saved me, if I didn’t get out of there I would be dead.

“I have a long line of suicide on my father’s side, so yes, it could have happened. If I had stayed there I wouldn’t have made it. And I got out.’

Ruby married her husband, film director Ed Byrne, in 1988 and they had three children, Max, 35, Madeline, 33, and Marina, 30.

The pair’s romance was not so smooth as Ed revealed that Ruby wanted to fire him when they first met.

She said ‘I had one egg left, okay – it was very late in the day and Dawn said ‘Well he’s available!’ I literally had one egg left and so he got more and more attractive as time went on Through.”

Ruby eventually moved to the UK and settled in Glasgow before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978.

She started working at the BBC in 1991 with her show The Full Wax.

In 1994, Ruby Wax Meets Madonna aired on the BBC, followed by the series Ruby Wax Meets… between 1996 and 1998, in which she interviewed the likes of Don and Trump, OJ. Simpson and Pamela Anderson.

In 1997, the program was nominated for a BAFTA Award for an interview with Sarah, Duchess of York, which attracted more than 14 million viewers.

From November 2001 to June 2002 Mrs Wax presented a television quiz show on BBC One, The Waiting Game.

During her interview, Ruby also berated the BBC for shutting down her interview show when she reached the age of 50.

She accused the broadcaster of not allowing women of that age to host chat shows after they ended its popular programs questioning A-list stars in 2003.

Louis Theroux’s series replaced it, prompting Ruby to change the direction of her career and bring up the issue of mental health after suffering from severe depression.

Kate asked her, “So why have the TV shows dried up?”

Ruby replied, “Because I turned 50 and I’m not allowed to,” to which the host asked, “So it was an age thing?”

Ruby said, ‘Sure, and then there was this guy who took over my job, it’s not Louis Theroux who’s a really nice guy.

“And who I won’t name names said ‘we want you to do a game show’ but I said I could be a really good interviewer and they said ‘uh uh’ so I left town.”

For years she blamed Theroux, but later found out that it wasn’t his fault she was suspended, but another television executive.

The star subsequently confirmed that she was again stricken with depression before deciding to change her career and later went on to study for a master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at the University of Oxford.

Discussing her mental health struggles, she said, “I got depressed after not having it for 12 years. When you first get it you think “what’s up?” it comes back and the voices are just unbearable more than usual I think I look like c**p and suddenly everything goes quiet and it is impossible to move.’

“Whoever you were is gone, that’s what depression is. It’s a blank page, it’s not just being sad.”