Donald Trump's Most 'Shocking' TV Interview EVER Resurfaces as Interviewer Enters 'Vile' Reality Television Contest

Ruby Wax has re-entered the spotlight after joining the reality series I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – and the renewed attention has dragged one of her most infamous encounters back into the spotlight: her volatile 1999 interview with Donald Trump, which she has branded "the worst interview I've ever done."

Wax, 72, renowned in the 1990s for her confrontational BBC interviews and sharp-edged humor, arrived in Australia in November alongside fellow contestants Lisa Riley, Angry Ginge, Alex Scott and Jack Osbourne.

Her brisk comments within minutes of the show's opening episode immediately split viewers. But as the debate over her behavior grows, so too has interest in the interview that once ended with now-U.S. president Trump, 79, ordering her off his private plane.

In 1999, while filming Ruby's American Pie for BBC1, Wax met Trump, then a 53-year-old property magnate rather than a future president.

The encounter quickly deteriorated. When Trump told her he intended to run for president one day, Wax laughed. That reaction caused Trump to "kill her" – his words at the time – if she ever crossed him again, and the crew was removed from the aircraft when it landed in Arkansas.

Wax said: "When he told me he wanted to be president one day I laughed heartily. I don't even want to discuss it, it's too shocking."

She later added: "Was I proud of that film? No! It wasn't a good interview at all. I mean, I got thrown off the plane."

A former BBC producer familiar with the shoot said: "That moment rattled her. Trump was determined to reassert control, and throwing her off the plane was his way of showing it."

Another crew member said: "It was pure hostility from him the second she pushed back. The atmosphere was toxic."

Wax has been blunt in her assessment of Trump, describing him as "a maniac" and "a narcissist."

She said: 'Other interviews – like Imelda (Marcos) or O.J. (Simpson) – were good, but I should have got more from that one. I could have flattered him more, but he hated me."

During the trip, she witnessed behavior that disturbed her even before the cameras rolled.

"The camera wasn't on," she said, "but he was trying to be shocking about the way he treated women. He thought he was irresistible. I was a female he couldn't have s-- with. I don't think he'd ever seen that breed before."

Speaking later to Louis Theroux on his podcast "Grounded," she said: "We sat down, and he smelled my fear, like my dad used to, like an animal. The hatred in his eyes and how stupid he thought I was... and I became that. The stupidest questions I've ever asked in my life."

A U.S. network executive familiar with the archives said: "That interview is seen differently now that Trump is president. Viewers see the aggression, the thin skin, and the misogyny in ways that feel amplified by hindsight."

Another former colleague who worked with Wax in her BBC years said: "Trump was one of the few people who genuinely intimidated her. That encounter stayed with her for decades."

Wax has said little about the resurgence of the footage as she settles into her latest television role, but the material has spread widely online after her return to screens. For many viewers discovering it anew, the rediscovered interview appears just as combustible as it did in 1999 – and its shock factor, like Wax's own TV legacy, has not faded.

Meanwhile, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! is currently and consistently at the centre of an animal rights controversy, with the 2025 series already receiving backlash and being labeled "vile" by campaigners. Animal welfare organizations such as PETA and the RSPCA regularly condemn the show's use of animals in Bushtucker Trials, which see famous faces competing on the show forced to gorge themselves on creatures' eyes, genitals and organs.