Ruby
In Bed With Ruby
By Amy Mowafi
June 2007

For months we sat back in silence and watched the rumour mill whirr. Egypt’s sexiest and most controversial pop-star, the riveting rambunctious Ruby had been given the makeover of a lifetime and no one was quite sure who was responsible. There was talk of a trip to London, of a certain international stylist, of glamour and glitz, of a new look and a new outlook. The hallmarks of Enigma magazine might have been obvious to those in the know, but we were obliged to stay quiet. Finally, following the release of her second epic album Mesheet Warah Ehsasy (I Followed My Feelings), we can reveal that last November, amidst the chaotic preparations for her new video, we quietly arranged a fashion shoot for Ruby in London in order to produce an incredible and extravagant celebrity fashion shoot. Ruby was adorned with breathtaking gowns by the world’s leading designers as well as millions of pounds worth of diamonds including a ruby necklace from Graff worth an incredible £30 million! Meanwhile, Senior Editor Amy Mowafi spent three fun-fuelled days in London with the star, culminating in a hilarious gossip-fuelled slumber-party in her suite. The result is a rare and intimate portrait – a remarkable look behind the public persona. And with it the discovery that despite the controversy and scandal that has surrounded her foray into the music industry, Ruby is just a young girl chasing a dream; a 25-year-old who is more sweet than seductive and more vulnerable than va-va-voom. Exclusively for Enigma magazine, the REAL Ruby reveals all…

Ruby does not need to be told what to do. With her own voice crashing through the speakers, Arabic beats meshing into house music and soaring into every corner of the room, she perches atop the bed, a chaotic mound of white pillows surrounding her and wind coursing through her lush black hair; there’s a flash of thigh and an arch of the back; she throws her head back, closes her eyes in rapture and gives the photographer the shot of his life. “Amazing, wow, incredible,” he shouts over the din. The wind swoops through her dress and she moves expertly within the swirling folds of sumptuous ruby red couture, creating the ultimate Monroesque moment. The style director is beside himself with excitement. “I love her. I  love her,” he is practically screaming. “She’s just so amazing!” 

And so finally, after three fun and frivolous days, and one giggle-fuelled all-nighter with a disarmingly open, contagiously energetic and deliciously spirited 25-year-old, I suddenly have my first glimpse of the Ruby of my preconceptions. The Ruby that first belly danced her way into the Arab music industry in 2003 with a video that showcased her raw Egyptian sexuality in its full controversial glory. The Ruby that the Arab world hates to love, but adores nonetheless; a sensual songstress that leaves conservatives bristling, and liberals cheering. Serious academic papers have charted the boundaries she has broken; the likes of the BBC and the Financial Times have debated her impact on Arab society, and Egypt’s youth once voted her the country’s ‘most interesting and popular figurehead’.
 
But up until that seminal moment on the bed, with Ruby posing her little heart out for the Enigma cameras, I was finding it alarmingly impossible to recognise the young girl with whom I had spent the last 48 hours, as the same knowing woman who infamously invested an exercise bike with lashings of sexual innuendo in 2003’s Leih Beydary Kedah (Why does he hide his feelings?) video; the voluptuous snake-clad seductress who writhed around in a mock ancient temple in the Eba’a Abelni(I dare you) video. How can that ravenous Ruby be the same slip of a size six girl with whom I sat cross-legged on the floor of a London hotel suite, adolescently sharing a cigarette and talking about boys? “I’m so scared of commitment,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Just the idea of responsibility makes me so tense, that’s why I’m not even thinking about marriage. Anyway I can barely take care of myself, how am I supposed to take care of someone else!?”  

How is the Ruby who infamously dated a high profile older man,  the same childishly bouncy girl who emptied out the day’s shopping onto her bed, pulled me onto the duvet and excitedly talked me through her latest buys (a tartan ruffled mini-skirt, a knee-length chocolate coloured skirt and a surprisingly elegant fitted black jacket) ? “And there was another amazing skirt which I’m going to go back and buy,” she said breathlessly. “It was from Selfridges and so funky; it had these sleeves sewn all over it.” This Ruby is definitely more sweet than smouldering…

It’s the end of a hectic 16 hour shoot, and Ruby, having just emerged from the shower and wrapped up in a fluffy white bath robe, slumps onto the edge of the bed and drops her head onto her chaperone’s shoulder in exhaustion. She has reason to be tired. She has been pulled and poked, made-up and re-made, dressed and undressed, and yet throughout every minute of our extravagant shoot, was operating on full blast. Even at eight hours and counting, with most of the crew’s energy reserves thoroughly depleted, Ruby got up unannounced during a coffee break and started jumping and waving, dancing and shaking to her new album. In no time at all, the dozen-strong crew were clapping and cheering and shaking right along with her. It may not have been her intention to boost everyone’s spirits, but it worked, and it pulled us through. And now in the silence of the aftermath, I confess she has genuinely surprised me; I admit that the girl I am getting to know bares little resemblance to the media persona. “But I could never act in real life the way I do in music videos,” she replies immediately. “No way! Besides my mum would kill me! Unless of course I like some good-looking guy, and then I might pull a few of my moves,” she gives me one of her famously suggestive winks and sinks into the bed with a burst of infectious husky laughter.

Aside from Sherif Sabry – Ruby’s manager and moulder (but we shall come to that later) – her mother is her greatest influence. With a starring role in a number of Ruby’s hilarious anecdotes, she is seemingly a woman of simple sensibilities. And to know the mother is to begin to understand the girl; or at least the opposing forces battling for supremacy within the girl. Ruby’s mother, for example, disapproves of her daughter waxing her legs. “She thinks the only reason a girl would want to wax is because they’re getting up to no good!” says Ruby, laughing over dinner one night. “And I’m not allowed to lock the bathroom door, so sometimes she just bursts in and asks me what I’m doing. What does she think I’m doing?!” And while her mother tells her she can dress how she likes, go out when she wants, and dance to her heart’s content, there is one glaring golden rule, “She says that no man should be allowed to touch me, not a single fingerprint.” It’s little wonder that Ruby’s much-publicised intimate relationship with her manager served to anguish the mother-daughter dynamic. “We had these really huge fights, of course she was worried about me because he’s so much older, but we had some really hard times because of it. I’d go running to my friend’s house crying all the time.”

But that was then, and this is now. Following Ruby’s two year hiatus from the pop charts, she and Sabry are no longer an item. “We now have a really professional working relationship,” she says. “But of course we still really care for each other, and there is love and kindness in everything we do for each other.” Commendable words but any girl who has had her heart broken will recognise the put-on-a-brave-face sentiment. Yet Ruby is doing her best to move on. The upside is that she and her mother are now on much better terms, “Of course she’ll still give me a whack when she’s angry at me!” And in the last five years she has been through a real metamorphosis. Whereas she was once a simple Egyptian girl, being brought up by her mother and grandfather in Cairo’s Aataba district, happily ensconced within a very traditional cocoon, she has since been “brought up all over again” by Sherif Sabry – famous director, producer and CEO of her life.

During filming of his controversial movie Saba' Wara'aat Kotcheena (7 Playing Cards),Sabry watched the young actress “dancing and jumping around and singing” to herself on set and immediately spotted the X-factor. “At the time, I didn’t really know exactly what I was going to do with my life,” recalls Ruby. “But he asked me if I liked singing, and I said yes, so he said let’s make a video clip, and I said ishta (Okay) and we did it and it was a massive success.” Having taken her under his profitable and prolific wings, he introduced her to a jet-set world of five star hotels, exotic locations, beautiful people and expensive indulgences; a world which Ruby now negotiates comfortably. In fact, she seems slightly unimpressed by La Dolce Vita. There’s already a sense of the ‘been there and done that’ in the way she strides confidently through London’s designer shops and nonchalantly makes herself comfortable in sprawling hotel suites. And when faced with a menu of delights at one of London high society’s favourite restaurants, she coolly opts for the burger and fries.

“I was such a kid when I first started working with Sherif,” she says. “I used to hang out in the office, running around, annoying all the staff, talking and talking.” So Sabry made it his business to mould her into a sophisticated star. The phrase “he taught me everything I know,” has never been more apt. “The way I speak now, my concepts of life and of being a singer, that is all Sherif,” she says, the adoration for her “creator” almost tangible. “He taught me how to live in the rhythm of the music, to be one with the music. He has impacted me in every way.” She may have become a star, but is she sophisticated? Not quite. She’s still a little immature around the edges, and thankfully so, because that’s part of her charm. Years in this cut-throat industry have failed to harden or embitter her. But then she has been carefully guided by some of its leading men. Iconic Egyptian director Youssef Chahine – who gave the one-time model her first big break in his 2001 movie Sekoot Hansawwar (Silence! We’re Filming) and her bejewelled stage name (Ruby’s real name is Rania Hussein) – taught her that the only way to survive was to look out for number one. “The most important thing I learnt from Youssef was to always try and make myself happy before I try and make other people happy,” she says.

Ruby is now perched atop a large desk, her bare feet dangling mid-air. One thing you soon learn about Ruby is that she never sits still, or sits normally. She’ll find the end of a sofa to perch on, she’ll sit on the floor, she’ll curl up on a window-sill, but she’ll never go for the chair. “You have to be yourself, and never try to do something just because you think it will please someone, because if you do, you probably won’t succeed and they definitely won’t respect you. I let people run after me, never the other way round. And I never do anything according to what I think the audience will like. If they don’t like it, they can change the channel.”

The thick skin might have been drilled onto her, but the self-assurance was already a given. Ruby is the first to admit that she is very comfortable and happy in her own skin.  I ask her where she would go if she could be anywhere in the world, her answer, without the faintest trace of irony, is immediate, “At home in front of my mirror”. So I’m surprised when she tells me that she never reads a word the press writes about her, “What difference would it make?” she asks. “Knowing what they’re saying is never going to be a help or a hindrance, so I just look at the pictures. I’d much rather understand my own thoughts.” And now we’re back to the mirror, “I like to read my body language in the mirror, the expression of my eyes. I want to read my own opinions, not other people’s perception of my opinions. I love dancing and singing in front of the mirror.” Is the egotism off-putting? Actually, not in the slightest; there comes a point when such brazen honesty simply has to be applauded, admired and accepted as entirely innocent. When leading French publication Paris Match flew out to Cairo to interview Ruby, their journalist jestingly called it narcissism. I disagree. I think it’s just a joie de vivre….a joie de self.

And so in an industry riddled with insecurities, where personalities are destroyed at the hands of fickle fans, Ruby firmly believes she’s here to stay. “Anyone who has a real talent, despite anything else, will be a success,” she says. “If God has given you a talent, that is something special and you will eventually succeed and remain a success.”

It’s a comment that no doubt warrants much rolling of disbelieving eyes. Yet Ruby was never packaged as the greatest voice of all time, but then neither was Madonna.  What Ruby does best is perform. No matter how much attention or money Sherif Sabry may have lavished on his budding star, there is one thing that simply cannot be taught…star quality. And when the spotlight is on, the music is loud and the cameras are flashing, Rania Hussien disappears and Ruby – riotous, rambunctious, riveting and resplendent – roars into life.

And last month, she burst onto our radars once again, with a new album, a new sound and a startling new look. Ruby’s famous curves have disappeared; the voluptuousness replaced by the striking angularness of – and this is no exaggeration – of a runway model. When we first meet, I am momentarily shocked; the gloriously Egyptian boobs and bottom have disappeared and she has poured herself into the skinniest of British size six skinny jeans. In the image stakes, Ruby is no longer competing with her Arab counterparts, she’s playing according to the harshest of international rules and she’s winning. But how will her Arab fans react? “I’m not worried,” she says. “The personality is the same, and that is what’s important. A body is a body, it’s the spirit is more important.”

The second album, Mesheet Warah Ehsasy, is also a departure from Ruby circa 2004. Written and produced in its entirety by Sherif Sabry, there’s more than a hint of house running through most of the tracks. “When Sherif first told me, I was really upset!” she says. “I hated house music; it used to give me a headache and make me tense. But he told me I needed to trust him and now I love it. I really feel the music. And it has affected my body and personality.” In fact, every time we return to her suite, the first thing Ruby does is kick off her heels, plug in her iPod and ensure her new album is blasting out at full volume. And then she dances and dances, for herself rather than for an audience. “I usually only listen to my own music,” she says. One evening, I look up from over my laptop to find her with her hands and knees on the floor in what appeared to be a leopard inspired dance move. “It’s for my new video,” she said casually, “I do all the choreography for all my videos myself. Here let me show you…” And she does, and is not content until we are both leaping about the room.
 
And in the meantime, there’s little that can spoil her fun. “I never get tense when I’m working, there is no point in doing something if you’re not enjoying it, and I love every minute of everything I do. Even when I worked with Youssef Chahine, I never let it pressure me, I never thought I have to achieve this or that, I knew I had the talent and that was enough.” And when her family pressured her to go into medicine, she flounced convention and “followed her heart”.

“At first everyone wanted me to become a doctor,” she says. “I thought about it a lot and realised I would be unhappy. So I did what I knew would make me really happy. So many people follow their parents’ footsteps without thinking about what’s important to them and that’s one of the biggest problems in Arab society.” And in doing what is right for her, Ruby genuinely believes she can positively impact and inspire Arab youth. “If everyone did what they were good at and not simply what they were pressured to do, then everyone would become a success and then the whole of society would be successful! We can start a revolution!” Ruby’s own personal revolution has left some members of her family irrepressibly proud – “my mother is really happy, I’m her little girl after all” – while others remain insistent that she is treading a dangerous path, but she simply “puts those people on mute”. Still, in order to keep her mother happy, she’s continued her education, and is studying Law at Beni Sweif University. “But for some reason I failed this year, even though I studied really hard.”

There have been stars who have impressed me with their intelligence and others who have challenged me with their political opinions, there are stars who have blown me away with their beauty, bored me with their superficiality or simply annoyed me with their arrogance. Ruby did none of the above. What she did however is much more memorable…she was herself. There are no whizzing, whirring calculations going on the back of her mind when she speaks to you. And, contrary to popular perception, there are no strings being pulled. If there were, then I can only say the puppeteer ought to rethink his strategy. So much of what Ruby told me should never have been shared with a journalist. Call it naivety, call it sincerity, but the girl simply does not have the ability to self-censor, to be anything other than genuine. The first thing she said when we met was, “I don’t understand these silly questions journalists ask about the way I act, or religion or love. What has that got to do with anything? I wish they’d just focus on what matters, the music and videos and the album. That’s the stuff I’m really passionate about.” Yet we ended up talking for hours about sex, God and rock n’ roll. So when it came to writing this article, I eventually decided to do the censoring for her. Some of what was said in London will stay in London. Why? Because whatever judgements the arrogant Arab media might make, whatever cruelties conservatives might throw at her, she’s just a young girl living out her dream, and you know what? I liked her. I liked her for everything she said wrong and everything she is trying to do right. Call it naivety, call it unprofessional, but as Ruby says, “It’s so important to follow your own feelings; who cares what other people think you’re supposed to do?”