A HARRY Potter star has revealed her plans for assisted dying as she admits “I’ve let my body down.”
The veteran actress, who played Professor Sprout in the Wizard flicks, has said that at 84 she is starting to feel her age.
5
5
5
Miriam Margolyes opened up in a recent interview and said: ‘I’ve let my body down. I haven’t taken care of it.
“I have to walk with a walker now. I wish I’d done exercise.
“It’s the most ghastly waste of time, except that it keeps you going. So, I’m foolish.”
But despite her heart-breaking confession the star is not tempted by Ozempic, the weight-loss drug favoured by celebrities.
She exclaimed: “Absolutely not. That’s for diabetics. You shouldn’t take medicine meant for people who are really sick.
“What I do think is we should not have food advertising on television.”
However, the national treasure revealed her plans to ask for assistance in dying if needs be reports The Daily Mail.
She said: “I don’t want to go through a slowly diminishing period of pain and embarrassment.
“If a stroke meant I couldn’t speak, or I was doubly incontinent, or I lost my mind completely, I would ask to be put down.
“That’s because I want to be who I am. I don’t want to be less than I can be.”
Miriam has also had enough of England and has plans to move to Italy.
Not one to shy away from controversy, Miriam said: “I’ve kind of had it with England. I live in a street in Clapham where everybody is wealthy, and the wealthier they are the worse they behave.”
She added: “When I bought into this street they were just ordinary people who lived here.
“Now they’re all millionaires and billionaires, and they’re always either blowing leaves in their garden with very noisy equipment or constructing further stories on top of their houses, as if four wasn’t enough. Absurd.”
She and her partner, Australian professor Heather Sutherland have always had separate homes in London and Amsterdam and come together for holidays in Tuscany and New South Wales.
Miriam revealed that the pair really do love each other and said: “She is a remarkable, brilliant woman and every conversation with her is uplifting and surprising and fun and sometimes full of anger, but she’s my person and I’m her person and we should live together when we’re old.”
Miriam now hopes that she will be able to live with Heather in the house that they bought together in Italy in 1973 until they die.
And she is making plans to leave England now: “We’re starting to do it now. But, of course, I have to come home every so often because of the rule about 90 days,” she explained.
She added: “So I’m thinking I might have to become Dutch. Heather has residency in Europe because she’s lived in Amsterdam for over 50 years, but we want to be together.”
The Little Book Of Miriam will be published on 11 September by John Murray, priced £16.99.
5
5
