Alert – Miranda Hart leaves Selena Gomez in tears after revealing singer’s public health battle gave her the ‘courage’ to share her own Lyme disease diagnosis

Miranda Hart left Selena Gomez close to tears after confessing that the singer’s openness about her health problems had inspired her to go public with her struggles with Lyme disease.

The pair appeared together on The Graham Norton Show, with the comedian, 51, sharing how the 32-year-old singer’s 2022  documentary My Mind & Me gave her the ‘courage to be vulnerable’ and write about her illness in new memoir I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You.

Selena has long been candid about her mental health issues – as well as her battle with the autoimmune disease lupus – before revealing in the documentary that she contemplated taking her own life for several years after battling psychosis, which led to her being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Miranda, who was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease after suffering the debilitating symptoms of fatigue, aches and loss of energy for three decades, said: ‘I watched Selena’s documentary and it gave me the courage to be vulnerable and share my feelings about my disease. It kept me writing.

‘The book is not just about illness; it is about how I learnt to live well and free with joy and meaning despite my circumstances. I now feel I can be in the world as me. I feel fully free, if not fully recovered.’ 

Miranda Hart, 51 (pictured) left Selena Gomez, 32, close to tears after revealing the singer’s public health battle inspired her to reveal her own Lyme disease diagnosis during their joint appearance on Friday’s Graham Norton Show 

Selena Gomez’s 2022 documentary My Mind & Me gave Miranda the ‘courage to be vulnerable’ and write about her illness in new memoir, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You

Selena has long been candid about her mental health issues – as well as her battle with the autoimmune disease lupus , before revealing in the doc (pictured) that she contemplated taking her own life for several years after battling psychosis

Newly wed Miranda – who was joined by Kevin Kline, Zoe Saldana and Ncuti Gatwa on the sofa – also revealed that meeting her husband helped combat the loneliness she felt after being diagnosed with Lyme disease. 

She shared: ‘I had my diagnosis during the pandemic, and it was a very lonely time, so I decided I didn’t want to be alone anymore, so I put out this little prayer with about one percent of hope, but I met someone and got married in July.’ 

In her new memoir, set to be released on October 10, Miranda, who has taken a break out of the spotlight for nearly the past decade, talks about her plight and the moment she ‘collapsed’ from ill health. 

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

It took medics 33 years to discover Miranda had been battling with the bacterial infection Lyme disease, after initially mislabelling her as being agoraphobic – an anxiety disorder characterised by symptoms of anxiety in situations. 

She recalls running out a doctor’s appointment in floods of 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 finally received the diagnosis in lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme disease when she 14 after battling nasty flu-like symptoms in Virginia. 

She writes: ‘For me it was the unnerving neurological symptoms that I had got initially, aged fourteen, from Lyme, which I always found particularly hard to deal with. And they got considerably worse as I headed into my forties. As did the fatigue from the cell depletion. Yup, all delightful.’

Miranda, who was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease after suffering symptoms for three decades, said: ‘I watched Selena’s documentary and it gave me the courage to be vulnerable’

‘ [The documentary helped me] share my feelings about my disease. It kept me writing’

The comic officially received the diagnosis in lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme disease when she 14 after battling nasty flu like symptoms in Virginia 

The former Disney star was diagnosed with lupus in 2013, before undergoing a a kidney transplant at just 24 due to lupus-related organ damage in 2017 (pictured in her documentary) 

Of the moment she got her diagnosis, she adds: ‘I got off that Zoom call, pulled my laptop shut and sat there, still and aghast. So many emotions, I was shocked, but I also immediately felt a deep well of sadness and disappointment – for over three decades I’d KNOWN there was something wrong. I recalled all the times I’d told different doctors, “I feel toxic and poisoned, or, It’s like I have flu every day but I don’t have a temperature.”

‘(It’s amazing how the body can sometimes literally tell us what’s going on.) I felt anger rising at the times l’d been told I must have agoraphobia. 

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

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

But Lyme disease was causing havoc for her body and she ended up with ‘endless diagnoses’. Also, fans soon noticed her absence from TV screens. 

Newly wed Miranda – who was joined by Kevin Kline, Zoe Saldana and Ncuti Gatwa on the sofa – also revealed that meeting her husband helped combat the loneliness she felt after being diagnosed with Lyme disease 

 (L-R) Kevin Kline, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Ncuti Gatwa, Miranda Hart and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man

Earlier this year Selena told Rolling Stone: ‘Part of me feels like I’m finally at a good place with everything in my life.’

She was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Lupus in 2013 and later revealed her diagnosis to the public in her October 2015 cover story with Billboard.

In 2017, she shared that she had undergone a kidney transplant at just 24 due to lupus-related organ damage. 

Elsewhere on the show Miranda, who was also joined by Kevin Kline, Zoe Saldana and Ncuti Gatwa on the sofa, shared more details about her intimate wedding, revealing she opted for a ‘Hawaiian’ theme. 

Revealing she tied the knot in July, she explained: ‘It was a very small gathering and for no reason at all it was Hawaiian themed with inflatable flamingos, coconut bowling and a steel band.’

The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 11th October 10.40pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer.