Ruby Wax didn’t mince words when recounting her infamous interaction with pop icon Madonna. The 71-year-old comedian and television personality vividly recalled her challenging 1994 interview with the “Like a Virgin” singer, which she conducted for the BBC to promote Madonna’s Bedtime Stories album.
Wax described the encounter as a “car crash,” noting that Madonna, then 65, was extremely defensive and selective about which cameras to use. “She kept saying which camera she wanted,” Wax shared in a new interview. “I had to make sure she wasn’t insulted because she was ready for an insult or a hardball question to be thrown. She was totally defensive, and that’s not a way to do an interview.”
Despite Wax’s attempts to lighten the mood with humor, the interview remained tense. “I tried to make her laugh and then I tried to take her seriously, except I was doing an entertainment show, so I had to keep it funny. She was answering me in a kind-of snide way and not being honest,” Wax explained to Heat magazine. “I can only be honest, so it was a car crash. I think, in the end, she thought I was funny in a goofy kind of way. But she couldn’t get serious.”
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Ruby Wax had initially hoped for a positive connection with the “Vogue” singer. She had previously shared on The Matt Lucas Awards show: “I thought we were going to bond but she hated me on sight.” The situation culminated in a bizarre moment when Wax put Madonna’s underwear on her head as a comedic gesture after the interview ended. “She left her handbag so I rifled through it and found some of her underpants and put them on my head and started doing some comedy. Madonna looked into the room and saw it. She has never called me since. As for her pants, they were like a piece of dental floss with some cotton and some frills,” Wax humorously recounted.
This incident with Madonna is not the only controversial interview in Ruby Wax’s career. Recently, she discussed a morbid 1998 interview with OJ Simpson, conducted after his trial for the double murder of his wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson, who died from prostate cancer in April, engaged in unsettling behavior during the interview, including pretending to stab Wax with a banana.
Reflecting on the bizarre interview, Wax shared a chilling detail: “He’d asked me if I want to know where the knife is. The whole time he was teasing me. But I think he was delusional, I don’t think he knew what he had done because at one point, he said that as a footballer, he could convince himself of anything.”
Adding to the surreal experience, Wax recalled an April Fool’s prank Simpson played on her. “It was April 1st and he called me up and says: ‘It’s OJ, I did it.’ And then he went ‘April fools’ and hung up,” Wax remembered. “He was more or less telling me what he had done.”
Ruby Wax’s candid discussions about these interactions reveal the complexities and unexpected challenges that come with interviewing high-profile and controversial figures.
