Her quick wit, the effortless English, the interviews that felt like conversations - she represented a version of urban cool that felt just out of reach and completely aspirational. But then she disappeared.

The internet's complicated reunion with Channel V's Ruby Bhatia

Cut to now, when clips and interviews of her current life - offering life coaching at accessible rates, speaking about spirituality, simplicity, and stepping away from fame - began circulating online. First came the nostalgia brigade. Comment sections filled up with variations of: "My childhood!", "Channel V days were the best!", and the inevitable "90s was the last good decade." Ruby isn't a person so much as a portal to cable TV, dial-up internet, and a time when VJs were cooler than influencers.

 

Then headlines emphasising what she charges today versus what she earned at her peak triggered the internet's favourite pastime: doing celebrity math. Threads debated her success, decline, simplicity, and whether stepping away from a high-paying media career is enlightenment or a cautionary tale. The subtext, as always: if you're not scaling, are you even winning?

Many users see her pivot not as a fall, but as a deliberate refusal of the fame treadmill. But the internet also has trust issues, especially when the words "life coach" enter the chat. Questions about credentials, expertise, and the booming self-help economy surfaced quickly. Online audiences are sentimental about the past, but ruthlessly practical about the present.

 

What's interesting isn't the praise or the criticism, but the discomfort. The internet likes clean narratives - rise, fall, comeback. Ruby Bhatia's story doesn't fit that template. She didn't reinvent for relevance. She simply chose a smaller life.

Which, in today's attention economy, might be the most radical rebrand of all. If the 90s made her a cultural face, the 2020s have turned her into something stranger: a nostalgia icon who walked away from nostalgia itself. The internet doesn't quite know whether to admire that, question it, or turn it into a reel.