In the history of this magazine, there has never been, and may never be a more complicated, arduous or stressful shoot and story to pull off. This wasn’t weeks or even months in the making. It took an entire year. There was drama, arguments and occasionally even tears. And yet, there has never been a more spectacular result. It began late in the summer of 2006. Rumours were circulating that, following a two-year hiatus, Ruby – in all her controversial overtly sexual glory – was planning a comeback. We quietly arranged a meeting with her then manager, Sherif Sabry, and suggested that Enigma fly Ruby out to London, have her extravagantly styled by famed stylist, Mohieb and really give people something to talk about.  Sabry was reluctant, insisting that, from that point on, his star would only appear in "foreign publications." He had already secured an exclusive with Paris Match magazine, discounting all local media. We refused to be deterred. A second meeting was arranged, and this time we had a mock-up of what we had in mind. Sabry couldn’t resist. The trip was arranged for early October and the story was scheduled to run in our December 2006 edition, the perfect cover for our Glamour Issue.  As planned, Editor-in-Chief Yasmine Shihata and Managing Editor Amy Mowafi joined a newly skinny Ruby in London (she had been dieting for weeks to fit into international sample sizes) and preparations began. Ruby herself blew us away with her professionalism. She was up at the crack of dawn on the day of the shoot, and for 18 long hours never once complained. Mohieb filled an entire suite with hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of outrageous couture for her. We had also sourced a wonderfully apt ruby and diamond Graff necklace for her, worth an incredible 30 million sterling. The problems started when, during the first of many conversations with Managing Editor, Amy Mowafi, she said, “God taught me to dance this way and dress this way.” The interview was being filmed by both an Al Jazeera International crew (who had caught wind of our shoot and asked to be present) and Fashion TV. Panicking at the ludicrousness of the comment, her chaperone secretly called Sabry, who, within minutes, was on the phone demanding the video footage be deleted. After a good two hours of negotiations with Sabry, we were finally able to move on with the proceedings.  

Nevertheless, over the course of the shoot, it became clear that something truly special was in the offing. As we watched each shot come up on the monitors, we could do nothing but gasp. Ruby looked out of this world. This really would be the comeback we had planned for. After the team had packed up and left, Amy spent another two days with the star, in her suite and on the town, and succeeded in getting Ruby to really open up. The result was nearly five hours of taped and tantalising conversation, including some seriously explicit details, which we decided to respectfully keep to ourselves. However, what we could use was enough for a serious scoop. Back in Cairo, we excitedly set things in motion for the December issue. And then, a few weeks before print, we received a very irate call from Sabry. He had been sent the images from the shoot and was refusing to allow them to be published. He had aimed to reposition Ruby as a ‘serious’ singer with lofty artistic aspirations, and the shoot, which included a shot of his protégé in a gold leotard seductively sprawled on a big white bed, simply did not fit in with his sedate imaginings. Something very strange was going on. With 48 hours to go to print, we had no cover, but more devastatingly, we were on the brink of losing some of the most spectacular work we had ever done. So of course you can imagine our shock when Ruby turned up in her new video, dressed in some of the very outfits we had sourced for our shoot! (What happened to no overt sexiness?). It took five more months of drama (the crazy details we’re better off saving for our 20th anniversary issue!) before we were able to finally get hold of the original images from our shoot. When the Ruby edition came out early in the summer of 2006, the reaction was stupendous. We cheekily titled the story In Bed with Ruby (the multiple references known only to us!) and the Arab media went wild. As hoped, everyone was talking about the phenomenal shoot and sizzling story. It may have nearly killed us, but it certainly made us stronger. And it was definitely worth the wait. 

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