Actress Christina Applegate opened up about living with multiple sclerosis (MS), which she was diagnosed with in 2021.
During an interview with “Good Morning America,” she got emotional discussing how despite receiving praise for her work, she feels she lives “in kind of hell.”
She first noticed symptoms like leg buckling in 2019 while filming “Dead To Me” and needed a wheelchair by the final season in 2021.
.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Christina Applegate gives an emotional and powerful interview to @RobinRoberts on her MS diagnosis, grieving and her bond with Jamie-Lynn Sigler: "They call it the invisible disease but it can be very lonely because it's hard to explain to people." pic.twitter.com/idUEZgmmkj
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 13, 2024
“I noticed, the first season, we’d be shooting and I would buckle, my leg would buckle,” Applegate said. “I put it off as being tired, or dehydrated, or it’s the weather, and then nothing would happen for months and I didn’t pay attention. But when it hit this hard, I had to pay attention.”
Applegate credits her former co-star Selma Blair, who also has MS, with urging her to get tested.
“I needed someone to help me get there, and they were wonderful,” she said. “But I probably had it for many, many years, probably six or seven years.”
“She goes, ‘You need to be checked for MS.’ I said, ‘No, really?’” she said. “‘The odds, the two of us from the same movie, that doesn’t happen.’ She knew. If not for her, it could have been way worse.”
She praised her friend Jamie Lynn-Singer, diagnosed with MS at age 20, for keeping her going through the difficult times.
“Because I’m the one….I’m flipping the bird all day long at this thing and I’m angry. I’m really, really pissed,” Applegate said. “I was a dancer and a runner and all these things that I love and a mom and she’s like, ‘Okay, I have you and you are going to be okay.’”
“If not for her, I really honestly don’t know,” she added. “It sucks. It’s not my favorite disease, I’ve had a couple. It’s not my favorite one.”
Applegate noted that can be lonely to explain. While angry and missing her active lifestyle, she aims to function better over time but knows she’ll always be reminded of MS each day.
The “invisible disease” can be “very lonely” because it’s “hard to explain to people” what she’s experiencing, she noted.
“I’m never going to wake up and go, ‘This is awesome,’” Applegate said. “I’m just going to tell you that. Like, it’s not going to happen. I wake up and I’m reminded of it every day … But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better.”
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