Miranda Hart admits she instantly ‘fell in love’ along with her husband Richard Fairs ‘there after which’ – simply moments after first assembly

Miranda Hart admitted she immediately ‘fell in love’ with her husband Richard Fairs ‘there and then,’ just moments after they first met in real life.

In a candid new interview wth Charlie Stayt on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, the actress and comedian, 52, opened up about their ‘extraordinary’ first meeting. 

Miranda stunned fans when she announced that she had got married over the summer – after she began dating a mystery man who removed mould from her house in 2020.

He was later revealed as divorcee Richard – after he was pictured picking her up from the Cheltenham Literature Festival in October – 24 hours after she divulged his first name on The Graham Norton Show.

Now, in the new Boxing Day chat, the beloved comedian recalled: ‘The way we met was quite extraordinary. At the beginning of the book [her autobiography] I had this real longing not to be alone anymore and I admitted that to myself.

‘It was quite a pain because when we long for what we want, it’s at a time where we don’t have it so admitting that to yourself is a painful time. I was in my forties and single.

‘And then we met because part of my illness was that I was allergic to mould in my house. You couldn’t write it. I lost my house, I had to leave my house.

She explained that Richard was the project manager coming to sort out the building works and remove the mould.

Miranda said: ‘I was out of the house and a friend was dealing with it all because I couldn’t be there and we met on the final day of the works being done. I think I could say we fell in love there and then.’

She remained tight-lipped about her husband’s identity before it was revealed, referring to him only as ‘The Boy’ or ‘The Mould Man’ in her new book, I Haven’t Been Completely Honest With You.

But she revealed that they got engaged in January during a trip to Kew Gardens in west London after revealing they had ‘fallen hopelessly in love with each other’.

Miranda hinted slightly at his appearance, describing her new husband as a ‘salt-and-pepper greying hair look on a fine-featured man’.

It took medics 33 years to discover that Miranda had been battling with the bacteria infection Lyme disease.

Initially she was mislabeled as being agoraphobic — an anxiety disorder characterised by symptoms of anxiety in situations.

She also 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 officially received the diagnosis lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme Disease when she was 14 after battling nasty flu-like symptoms in Virginia 

She went public with her health struggles for the first time in her new memoir I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, as well as detailed falling in love with her now-husband.  

Issuing a health update on the BBC morning show, Miranda admitted: ‘Physically I’ve got a way to go. Lyme disease is a nasty thing that causes your immune system to go haywire. 

‘So fatigue is a thing of my life, which is a hard thing to explain because everyone gets tired. But fatigue is a very very different ballgame.

‘There was one point when I tried to keep going with work. I was told it was just stress and then eventually at the end of a year of doing some work, I felt so unwell I literally collapsed on my sitting room floor and I was on my own.’

 She continued: ‘It was frightening because I was like I don’t know what’s happening to my body. All I could say is I’m so exhausted I can’t lift my hand off the floor. But at the same time with years of chronic illness I knew it was pointless to call an ambulance.

‘So I was in this really weird in and out state of unconciousness in a way. But at the same time it was a profound point looking back and I’m lucky that I can look back and say that’s when I also relaxed  and went I surrender to this, there’s nothing I can do right now.

‘I’m either going to get better and learn what’s wrong, it was a sink or swim moment.’

However, she admitted the terrifying moment gave her the chance to ‘really work out who she was’ and her ‘identity in the world’. 

She added: ‘It’s lead to a freedom and joy and a holisitc health I never thought would be possible.’

It comes after speaking on Radio 4’s Young Again with Kirsty Young, Miranda explained how ‘the hardest thing’ of her health issues was not being able to work.

She said: ‘You know that the hardest thing I found was letting go of work and the pain of not being able to work.

‘So, no, I couldn’t work because I became ill and I tried to keep going before the diagnosis and it didn’t go well, and, I feel like I want to say thank you to all those dear producers and directors that had to work with me when we didn’t know what was going on and I was so unwell, but I hated having to stop work.’

She continued: ‘I hated giving up work… The phone completely stopped ringing and no one texted me, nothing, absolutely nothing. Just a few very kindly people who’d occasionally touch in and go, “Just come back when you’re ready”.’

However, Miranda explained that her mystery husband had helped her heal following her years of ‘deep deep aloneness’ and gushed he was a ‘brilliant best friend of a man’.

She said: ‘I’ve been married twice on screen, but third time in real life. It’s very, very lovely. I mean, I pinch myself every day.

‘That longing I felt and that deep deep aloneness – I think if I hadn’t longed, if I hadn’t felt what I felt, then I wouldn’t have found him and I wouldn’t be here.

‘It led me to grieve for what I needed and to become the person I needed to be to connect, and so I now have this brilliant best friend of a man and we laugh every day.

‘He’s practically more ridiculous than I, which I never thought possible to find in a human being. He’s been part of healing. He’s helped me find my joy and meaning. It’s just wonderful. And he says the same for me, I should rather proudly add. It’s lovely.’

Describing their first date, Miranda recalled how the pair had bonded over pizza and fell for each other.

She said: ‘I was determined on going on a date. [I thought] right, if I’m learning about how to be honest about who I am and love myself, then when a pizza delivery comes and it’s all, you know, shunted towards one end in the delivery.

‘It’s very upsetting… I thought, well no, I’m going to practice what I’m preaching and learning, so I just launched into this: “I’m really pissed off. Look at the pizza. Now it looks like a calzone, I hate calzones! They’re just pizzas folded. What is a calzone? This is really upsetting”.

‘And then you could see his sort of wide eyes and I thought, in the past I would have gone, “I’m so sorry, I’m an absolute idiot. Don’t look at me, I’m so silly ha ha.”

‘But I carried on about the pizza but it led to a very true and funny connection and brilliant date.’