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Hello and welcome to How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins.

This is the show where I sit down with special guests

to talk about the challenges they've overcome

and the coping mechanisms they use in their everyday lives.

Today's guest is the actor Leslie Ash.

Leslie is best known for playing the roles of Steph

in the Who's Rock Opera Quadrophenia

and Debs in the sitcom Men Behaving Badly.

Her TV career began at the age of four when she appeared in an advert for Fairy Liquid.

Quadrophenia, released in 1979, was her first major film role, and she went on to feature

numerous others. But it was playing the part of Debs in Men Behaving Badly from 1992 to 98 that brought her national attention.

Leslie became the subject of tabloid scrutiny in her late 30s when a procedure to plump up her lips went wrong, causing permanent swelling.

She was dubbed by the press as having a quote, trout pout and received a lot of unwanted attention. In 2004, she was admitted to

hospital after suffering cracked ribs, and whilst there, she contracted a life-threatening infection,

MSSA, similar to MRSA, and subsequently had to relearn how to walk. She successfully sued the

NHS a few years later for five million pounds.

In our conversation, we spoke about the sheer relentlessness of Leslie's terrible

misfortune with regards her health. She talked about how hard it was to cope with the impact

of her illness on her career, as well as the relentless and at times incredibly cruel press attention.

The scrutiny, both her appearance and private life came under,

...