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Miranda Hart has explained why she decided to sign up to Celebrity Traitors, which comes after years out of the spotlight as she dealt with a series of health struggles

Miranda Hart has explained why she decided to sign up to Celebrity Traitors following her “long term ill health issues.” The comedienne, 53, is best known for fronting her eponymous sitcom in the late 2000s but took a break from the spotlight after becoming increasingly unwell.

The TV star previously told how she had suffered a “tick-borne illness” while living in the USA as a teenager. At one point, she was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, before eventually being diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2020.

The Celebrity Traitors will mark Miranda’s first mainstream television appearance in six years, and she has now explained that she jumped at the chance to take part.

She said: “My decision making in life generally, and certainly work, is follow the joy. I haven’t done much TV work for a long time, having only recently come out of long-term ill health issues and when I was offered this, my whole body sort of relaxed, I smiled, and I just wanted to jump about like a schoolgirl with joy.

“It’s just fun. It’s outdoors, it’s games. All the stuff I love. It’s play basically. And I’m passionate about encouraging people to play more generally, and this game is that in spades.

“It’s a brilliant television show – the only flaw in taking part is that as a fan of the show it will be less fun to watch it with myself in it!”

Despite her new lease of life, the former Call the Midwife star, who secretly got married in late 2024, is still living with elements of her illness and is struggling to a point but has been able to manage her symptoms and insisted she felt well enough to join Claudia Winkleman’s hit BBC game show.

She added: “I’m still living with elements of ME, and that brings fatigue and pain to manage, but I have come to a point where I feel well enough to step out, and that’s also partly why I’m doing this.

“The joy of mucking about on television again will hopefully outweigh some of the challenges. And I think it will be challenging on my body, so it’ll be interesting, and it’ll take some courage as this is a big next step.

“When you live with a chronic illness, it’s invisible, so people don’t know that you’re sitting there in pain. But then it reminds you that everybody’s got their thing. So, I’m also really looking forward to making friends and looking after each other and hopefully they can carry me up a hill or whatever we’re going to have to do!”

Miranda, who will appear alongside the likes of Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Coronation Street legend Julie Hesmondhalgh, and Love Island host Maya Jama, even teased that there could be a nod to her sitcom past.

She added: “When someone said on Instagram, “Oh, I hope you gallop in the castle,” I foolishly replied, Right, I now take that as a dare.” So that was idiotic of me.

“I will have to at some point gallop down a corridor. I’ll gallop when no one’s watching…or who would be the best person to encourage to gallop?

“I don’t know. I mean, Kenny probably doesn’t even know who I am. So, if I could get him to gallop…I could get a new generation galloping.”

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ONCE dubbed “the most boring man in football” Michael Owen’s choice to sign up for a fly-on-the-wall Amazon documentary about his family was unexpected to say the least.

The former England striker turned pundit, 46, allowed cameras to follow him, his wife Louise and their children Gemma, James, Emily and Jessica as they balance family life with running a horse racing business in Cheshire.

And it was a distinctly left-field move from Michael, who – unlike celebrity documentary subjects David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and the larger-than-life Tyson Fury – has largely stayed out of the spotlight.

He is seen joking in six part series Meet The Owens that he is now best known as a “boring p***k” or “Gemma Owen’s dad” after she appeared in Love Island, raising questions about why he would agree to film the at-home-with style show.

And we can reveal that the ex-footballer – often referred to as ‘the most boring man in football’ – signed up for his TV payday after ploughing £13 million into his racing business pushed him to his financial limit.

While he may have other streams of income, accounts for Michael’s company Owen Promotions show it holds just £7,219 in cash and owes £2.3m to creditors.

It also has three outstanding loans, two of which were taken out in March 2022 and February 2024 with Leeds-based MR Denton Properties.

A further loan was taken out in February 2024 with Andrew Black, who co-founded Betfair.

Two other loans with Grosvenor Funding, which claims to offer “fast and flexible” bridging loans were paid off in 2023.

And all five loans were secured using parts of the Owens home estate – a 42-acre estate he bought in 2001 for £4million.

Speaking in Meet the Owens, which is now number 3 on the Amazon Prime UK chart, Michael revealed he has had to put “£12 or £13 million” into Manor House Stables to build it to its current level.

But he admits the business – which makes cash by persuading investors to back the horses they buy at auction – still desperately needs investors.

And he describes their current status as: “Premier League. Brighton, but not seventh, but kind of bottom half.”

Footage from the first episode shows the racing enthusiast giving pal Jamie Carragher a tour of the impressive grounds and stables, showing off a horse owned by Sir Alex Ferguson and another he owns along with Paul Scholes, Steve McManaman and Owen Hargreaves.

Drone shots show the impressive site from the air, while graphics also flash up on screen showing how the structure works – a handy guide for any would-be investors.

One source told us: “Michael is passionate about Manor House and racing, and he has done an incredible job on Manor House.

“The problem is that it is a big money pit and you can pour millions into it without any guarantee of winning horses.

“He loves it, and would never walk away, but it would be naive to say it hasn’t had a massive impact on his finances.

“And the pressure is never ending because as a business, you have to buy horses each year – for £90,000 or more – and try to find investors for them.

“Then the million-dollar question is whether or not those horses win, as the stables need winners to succeed.

“But the reality is that you only win a very small percentage of the races in which you have horses.”

Michael is now the sole shareholder for Manor House Stables LLP, which owns the stables, after director and co-owner Andrew Black resigned in March 2022 after six years.

Accounts show the company has healthy assets of approximately £13.6million.

Yet the source said the business still has a way to go before it becomes a money-spinner, rather than a money pit.

They added: “The Amazon payday has come at a good time for Michael, but he is also hoping the airtime for Manor House will attract more investors.

“The more money that comes in, the better the horses and the more winners we will see here.

“That will help the business move higher up the rankings among the top British stables.

“Michael loves racing and he is driven by passion for the sport, but he is also very competitive and wants to win.”

Previously, a source told us: “Michael is extremely determined to succeed in racing. He has poured millions of his own money into Manor House, and he will not stop until he’s at the very top.

“Signing up to broadcast this to the world was a huge risk for him, and he’s desperate for it to work.

“Michael is keen to show off how much Manor House is a reputable and successful stable, and he hopes putting the business on screen ends up being a help rather than a hindrance.”

A spokesperson for Michael declined to comment.

BERLIN: The leader of the United Arab Emirates began a state visit to Germany on Thursday, during which deals worth billions of euros will be signed in sectors including energy and technology, Emirati diplomats said.

Berlin rolled out the red carpet for Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who was received with military honors by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and was later to meet Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Security was tight for the visit, with Berlin cordoning off flag-lined streets and deploying large numbers of police.

“Over the course of this visit, the UAE and Germany will make a number of key announcements and multibillion-euro agreements across investment, business, technology, AI and energy,” senior UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh said at a briefing ahead of the visit.

The visit comes as the US war against Iran has roiled the Gulf region, with US President Donald Trump’s erratic diplomacy unsettling many midsize powers and leading them to diversify their strategic and economic partnerships.

Merz visited the Gulf region in February, shortly before the US-Israeli war started against Iran. He said then that “we need such partnerships more than ever at a time when major powers are increasingly dominating politics”.

The UAE is Germany’s largest trading partner in the Gulf, with bilateral trade topping $15 billion last year, and many big German companies have a presence there including BMW, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp and rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

The UAE meanwhile has made major investments in Germany, including in the chemical industry and offshore wind power.

During Merz’s visit in February, German energy giant RWE and Abu Dhabi’s national oil company ADNOC signed a memorandum of understanding on LNG imports over the next decade.

Gulf countries have also long bought defense equipment from Germany and have shown interest in start-ups that make drones to bolster NATO’s deterrence efforts against Russia.

Germany, the largest EU economy, supports talks towards a European Union free trade deal with the Emirates.

The group Human Rights Watch called on German leaders during the visit to “publicly call out the United Arab Emirates’ human rights record and its role in regional conflicts”.

No joint press conference was scheduled with Merz and Sheikh Mohamed.