{"id":706591,"date":"2026-05-31T16:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T16:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/706591\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T16:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T16:27:14","slug":"suzi-ruffell-when-i-met-mel-c-i-was-so-starstruck-alan-carr-had-to-whisk-me-away-suzi-ruffell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/706591\/","title":{"rendered":"Suzi Ruffell: \u2018When I met Mel C I was so starstruck Alan Carr had to whisk me away\u2019 | Suzi Ruffell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photograph of Suzi Ruffell in 1996 and 2026 in an oval frame, wearing a cropped top and tracksuit bottoms, her arms folded, smiling at the camera<\/a>Suzi Ruffell in 1996 and 2026. Later photograph: P\u00e5l Hansen\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Hair and makeup: C\u00e9line Nonon at Arlington Artists. Archive photograph: courtesy of Suzi Ruffell<\/p>\n

Born in Portsmouth in\u00a01986, comedian Suzi\u00a0Ruffell trained at\u00a0the Academy of Live\u00a0and Recorded Arts\u00a0in London and began her standup career in 2008. As\u00a0well as touring and appearing on\u00a0Live at the Apollo, she hosts a podcast, Out With Suzi Ruffell<\/a>, and co-hosts another, Like Minded Friends, with Tom Allen. She has also written a bestselling memoir, Am\u00a0I\u00a0Having Fun Now? Anxiety, Applause and Life\u2019s Big Questions, Answered. She tours her show The\u00a0Juggle until September.<\/p>\n

This was taken in the living room of the house I grew up in, in Portsmouth. All the curtains were heavily patterned, as were the carpets. I\u00a0was\u00a010\u00a0years old and deep in my Spice\u00a0Girls era \u2013 especially Mel C, who was on the roster of my early crushes, along with Kate Winslet and Jennifer\u00a0Aniston.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a loud, busy home, the kind of house where people were always popping in \u2013 my mum would be listening to the Supremes or Diana Ross, polishing the red leather sofa or making tea for whoever was hungry. Dad\u2019s mates would be there, and there was often an uncle and my nan, too.<\/p>\n

Back then, I had a desperation to be\u00a0liked, a needy energy that I couldn\u2019t seem to shake. I would spend my weekends on my bike trying to find an adventure, and as tragic as it sounds, always looking for new friends. My\u00a0dad was a real character, and watching him, I learned I liked being around funny people. Telling jokes looked like an easy way to navigate a\u00a0lot of my problems. I had bad anxiety \u2013 a real self-esteem deficit \u2013 and around this age I was trying to privately work out my sexuality. I\u00a0realised the currency of humour and\u00a0thought: \u201cIf I can be funny, maybe I\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t come out until I was 20, so for the decade before that, I remained frightened people would find out. There was one particular girl at school who was quite mean to me \u2013 I guess she could sense I was hiding something, or maybe she was just picking up on my weirdness. I was always showing off. As a dyslexic queer child who had trouble paying attention, I found school very claustrophobic. All of which resulted in obsessive behaviour, often regarding light switches or checking the doors. At school I would try to hold it together, but sometimes I\u2019d think: \u201cAs long as I run up and down these stairs five times, people aren\u2019t going to find out I fancy Kate Winslet.\u201d I was terrified my family would die. Essentially, I found the whole experience of living very chaotic and unpredictable. I needed to set rules for myself so I could control something, so I could cope. It was exhausting, but also no one died, so maybe there was something in it.<\/p>\n

When I found the youth amateur dramatic society, my life changed. I\u00a0went every Thursday \u2013 it was the one\u00a0place I could hang out with people who were just like me \u2013 outrageous \u2013 and a place where I could sing, dance\u00a0and do musicals. It felt like home, somewhere my brain would calm down, as I didn\u2019t have to worry about what people thought of me. We were so dedicated to our craft: in our minds, we were preparing for a sell-out show at the Palladium when,\u00a0in fact, we would perform to a modest crowd at the City of Portsmouth boys\u2019\u00a0school.<\/p>\n

Alongside the stage time and community, drama group was also the place I realised I could be funny. I was playing a posh lady with a silly voice one time, and people laughed. I knew I\u00a0wasn\u2019t the romantic lead as I\u00a0was never someone the boys fancied. Instead, the comic relief was a role I\u00a0could throw myself into.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI talked about anxiety and sexuality on stage. It was like ripping off a plaster. Suddenly, I was unashamed<\/p>\n

I first tried standup when I was 24. My\u00a0friend \u2013 then girlfriend \u2013 Faye suggested it. I had just graduated from\u00a0drama school and was struggling to get an agent or a callback from any\u00a0auditions. I had nothing to lose. I\u00a0don\u2019t remember any of the gags but I\u00a0know I was in a basement, the mic\u00a0was gaffer-taped to the stand and\u00a0there was one bright light glaring\u00a0at me. There were about 12\u00a0people in the audience and even though none of them laughed, I\u00a0felt\u00a0electric.<\/p>\n

After that I\u2019d go to Balham in London every\u00a0Sunday to do a comedy night. The gig always had an anarchic spirit\u00a0\u2013 particularly when the guy who\u00a0did poetry naked turned up. This\u00a0was the place where I made friends with Nish Kumar, Lou Sanders,\u00a0Brett Goldstein and Joel Dommett. We were oddballs together, having a go at something that seemed completely unhinged to everyone else. None of my friends understood why I\u00a0was going to Aberystwyth on a Thursday night to do five minutes at the Giggling Donkey. But the comedians could.<\/p>\n

When I started doing comedy, my\u00a0aesthetic suddenly became very important. I first started to cut my hair short at university while going through a Pink phase. But it wasn\u2019t enough. I wanted everyone to know I\u00a0was gay when they looked at me \u2013 a\u00a0definite reaction to all those years where I found my sexuality so scary. Initially, I\u2019d wear patterned leggings and Dr Martens, but I longed to step out in a suit and tie. As soon as I did, it made me feel so much more powerful.<\/p>\n

A real moment of change in my career came when I started talking about my anxiety and sexuality on stage, these two vulnerable subjects I\u00a0had worked so hard to conceal. It was like ripping off a plaster and suddenly I\u00a0was unashamed. People responded to it well, because deep down, we all feel like outsiders. While I\u2019m not playing the biggest theatres in the country, I\u00a0have found an audience that relates to me, and I relate to them.<\/p>\n

Plus, I\u2019ve even met Mel C. Alan Carr introduced me. I was opening for him, and she came to watch. It was the only time I\u2019ve been starstruck. I couldn\u2019t speak. The only thing I could say was: \u201cYou mean a lot to me \u2013 you always will.\u201d Then Alan said: \u201cShe\u2019s gone weird. I\u2019m going to take her away.\u201d<\/p>\n

I became a parent to a little girl in the\u00a0pandemic. I got married during that period, too. I didn\u2019t absorb the enormity of what I was doing, as the whole world felt trapped in a\u00a0strange new reality in 2020. Then, when we moved to Brighton when our daughter\u00a0was two and half, it finally sunk in. I\u00a0remember being on the beach with them both. We were having an ice-cream. Just the three of us, sitting on the pebbles. I thought: \u201cI\u2019ve got a\u00a0wife, I\u2019ve got a kid, we live in Brighton! I\u00a0don\u2019t feel weird or different. I have friends. Life has worked out good.\u201d It\u00a0was a moment so special that I\u00a0marked it by getting a\u00a0tattoo on my arm.<\/p>\n

There was a time in my teens when it was considered the worst thing in the world to be keen; now I embrace it. I run towards things. As I\u2019ve got older, I\u2019ve tried to become less embarrassed about who I am, and less concerned about being cool. I have also reached a\u00a0stage where I think anyone who is cool is probably a wanker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photograph of Suzi Ruffell in 1996 and 2026 in an oval frame, wearing a cropped top and tracksuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-706591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}