I wanted to be a boy as a child, says Fleabag star

THE star of Fleabag has revealed that she wanted to be a boy growing up, admitting she shaved her head when she was six and called herself Alex.

Phoebe Waller-bridge said that when she was a child, she would have “jumped” at the chance to become a transgender boy.

The writer of the triple Bafta-winning drama Killing Eve told the US radio station NPR that at six she shaved off her hair and started wearing boys’ clothing.

She said: “I wanted to be out, climbing the trees and wearing comfortable clothes. My friends were really into the dresses and the dolls and it just wasn’t my bag. It seemed you had to choose one or the other at that time.

“I had a friend called Maria and we both cut our hair really short and shaved it at one point, wore boxer shorts and swimming trunks and we were just boys.”

She said she was “very fervent” about her decision, saying: “I just desperately wanted to be a boy more than anything else.

“If it had been taken seriously by my school or something or those options had been given to me, I probably would’ve jumped at it.”

She added that she still has the same impulse to be a boy “all of the time”, although her five-year phase of wanting to be called Alex ended when she was 11 and went to boarding school.

She said at first she didn’t think much about being a boy or a girl: “But then I discovered boys in a big way.

“And one in particular – I remember meeting a boy and then suddenly becoming really aware that I looked sort of boyish myself and that he probably didn’t like that.”