A smoker from the age of 18, Rigg was still smoking 20 cigarettes a day in 2009. By December 2017, she had stopped smoking after serious illness led to heart surgery, a cardiac ablation, two months earlier. A devout Christian, she commented that: "My heart had stopped ticking during the procedure, so I was up there and The Good Lord must have said, 'Send the old bag down again, I'm not having her yet!'".
[on hitting middle age] I am devastated at what has happened. I have
completely disappeared. I am totally invisible. I never really liked my
sexy label but on the other hand, to disappear so totally is quite
startling.