Joanna Lumley believes her diet is behind why she's 'never ill'
Joanna Lumley may be best known for her razor-sharp wit and iconic characters, but it’s her long-standing approach to food that quietly shapes her everyday life.
The TV legend has spent decades navigating dinner parties, hectic filming schedules and restaurant menus with a calm, unfussy confidence - that’s even though her eating habits once left hosts scrambling in the kitchen.
What began as a personal decision in the 1970s has become a defining part of how she lives now, influencing not just what she eats, but how she feels, how she cooks and even how she moves around her home.
Those early days weren’t glamorous. In fact, Lumley has admitted that switching up her diet back then often caused more chaos than calm. She’s previously recalled how friends would react with full-blown panic when she arrived for dinner, convinced they had to whip up elaborate dishes to meet her needs.
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There were ‘eight eggs’ thrust upon her, and well-meaning attempts at lasagne that turned into, in her own words, ‘huge slabs of concrete with something horrifying in between’.
Despite being one of the most recognisable faces in British entertainment, she says there was no polite or simple way to request something as straightforward as vegetables.
It wasn’t a trend, a wellness challenge or a Hollywood-style overhaul. Lumley simply decided one day that she was ‘not going to do this anymore’, as she said on the Waitrose Dish podcast earlier this year, choosing to cut out meat and fish entirely.
That moment sparked a lifestyle she’s now followed for more than 40 years, and only after sticking with it through the awkwardness, the restaurant confusion, and the social misunderstandings does she now reveal the part that might be the most surprising.
That’s because, more than four decades later, the Absolutely Fabulous star says her decision has paid off in a way she didn’t expect. As she put it: “I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 40 years and I’m never ill.”
She describes her ideal way of eating as simple: “Eat stuff, mostly vegetables, not too much.”
She gravitates towards raw, fresh food, saying: “I like raw things very much, like salads and stuff. I'm so touched when anybody's done anything vegetarian for me.”
Her approach is far from strict or fussy. She doesn’t claim perfection, and she openly admits that veganism is ‘the next step’, but one she hasn’t taken because ‘I love cheese’.
She’s also refreshingly honest about movement: no expensive Pilates studios or intense gyms, just a tall, narrow house and the habit of running up and down its stairs.
Ben Williams