Ricki Lake has insisted that she “doesn’t come from money” after losing her home in the LA wildfires.
The 56-year-old talk show host – who is married to Ross Burningham but has sons Milo, 27, and 23-year-old Owen with ex-husband Rob Sussman – was one of several famous faces to lose property in the disaster and has thanked those who have reached out to help her.
Speaking in a video posted to Instagram, she said: “It’s been so crazy these last couple of weeks, especially in LA. This experience has just been…it has brought me to my knees and I can’t even imagine the people who had it worse off. I am staying at my beautiful friend’s house and we’ve been staying here since we got out of there.
“We ran out of there at like 8 o’clock at night and we’ve been here ever since. We’re leaving soon and making a move but I wanted to say a particular thank you to people who have sent stuff to us.
“It’s so weird to be in a place of need. I am such an independent person, I’ve been taking care of my own since [I was] 18 years old.
“I don’t come from money, I don’t come from any handout or nepotism. I just built this life for myself and my husband and my kids. It’s just so weird to have it be gone in one event. It’s so weird. But, like I said, I wanted to thank some people and the companies who have shown up.”
The Emmy Award-winning star – who shot to fame when she took on the role of Tracy Turnblad in the original version of ‘Hairspray’ in 1988 – the shared a further update where she revealed that she lost precious photos from the birth of her youngest in the fire, but her doula from that time has been in touch and offered to make copies for her.
She said: “It’s super early. My god, erm, I couldn’t sleep. I’m not sleeping. I woke up in the middle of the night and I got a message on Facebook.
“I don’t check my messages very often but I wanted to share it because it just moved me to tears in my bed while Ross was sleeping.
“One of the things I lost was so painful to me. I lost my album of my home birth. When I had my son, I had pictures done and it was really important to me.
“Anyway, one of my doulas at my birth back in 2001, she reached out and sent me a message and she has copies of pictures of my birth to Owen and she’s gonna make copies for me.
“It’s like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I can’t believe I’m going to be able to have those back.”