She became a household name in the 1990s thanks to her stint on the outrageous comedy The Nanny, but Fran Drescher says she was living in her own personal hell throughout much of the series.
The comedian told the New York Post that her famed tiny frame, which was squeezed into myriad of of skin-tight skirts and squeaky pleather dresses for the show, was a result of post traumatic stress (PTSD) caused by a violent sexual assault 10 years earlier.
Drescher was raped at gunpoint in 1985 during a home invasion and told the publication she “hadn’t really dealt with that” when she got the gig as Fran Fine on the CBS comedy.
“I had to deal with it once I became famous and it came out, though — thank God I was in therapy! Honestly, I just loved going to work and being Fran Fine, because she was nothing but funny and light, and my life was kind of a mess. I think that was part of why I was so thin.”
Drescher, who created The Nanny with her former husband Peter Jacobson, said that throwing herself into the wild character helped distract her from the mental anguish, but ultimately impacted her physical health.
“I look back at some of those episodes, and I remember what was going on behind the scenes, and it wasn’t pretty. When I sold the show [in 1993], I was 142 pounds — and by the time we were in our fifth season, I was maybe 110 pounds. I was burning the candle at both ends.”
The comedian would later face another health battle when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Drescher endured two years of misdiagnosis at the hands of eight doctors before she was correctly diagnosed with cancer.
Drescher told Think that prior to her diagnosis doctors had told her she had a perimenopausal condition and put her on four different hormone replacement therapies, one of which nearly killed her because of the oestrogen levels, which she said were “like poison for my particular condition”.
She underwent an immediate radical hysterectomy to treat the disease and was given a clean bill of health.
There has been talk in recent months of a Nanny revival thanks to the success of other recent remakes, such as Will and Grace, but Drescher told the Post she’s “not looking to revisit Fran Fine” and would rather look back at the character with fond memories instead.
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