Christina Applegate’s MS Journey and How Longtime Friend Selma Blair Helped Her Get Diagnosed
From first warning signs to life today, the actress shares raw updates on living with MS
Key Takeaways
- Christina Applegate, 54, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2021.
- Selma Blair, who also has MS, encouraged Applegate to get tested and seek a diagnosis.
- Applegate has shared candid updates about living with MS and ongoing health struggles.
On April 16, TMZ reported that actress Christina Applegate, 54, was hospitalized in late March amid her battle with multiple sclerosis (MS). That claim hasn’t been confirmed by Applegate, but her rep did tell USA Today, “She’s [Applegate] had a long history of complicated medical conditions that she has been refreshingly open about, as evidenced in her memoir [You with the Sad Eyes] and on her podcast [MeSsy].” Below, we share everything Christina Applegate has said about her health and battle with MS, including the shocking way Selma Blair helped her cope.
A look at Christina Applegate’s early MS symptoms
According to Mayo Clinic, MS is a disease that causes the nerves’ protective covering to break down. It can cause symptoms such as numbness, weakness, vision changes and trouble walking, and currently, there is no cure. Applegate was diagnosed with the disease in 2021, the same year her symptoms started to show.
“It was literally just tingling on my toes,” the actress told ABC News in March 2024. “And by the time we started shooting [the final season of her Netflix show Dead to Me with Linda Cardellini] in the summer of that same year, I was being brought to sit in a wheelchair. Like, I couldn’t walk that far.”
Woman's World Answers
Following her initial diagnosis, Applegate started speaking out about her MS journey. “You just have little sh-tty days. People are like, ‘Well, why don’t you take more showers?’ Well, because getting in the shower is frightening. You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle. Especially because I have a glass shower. It’s frightening to me to get in there,” she explained to Vanity Fair in May 2023. “There are just certain things that people take for granted in their lives that I took for granted. Going down the stairs, carrying things—you can’t do that anymore. It f-ck-ng sucks. I can still drive my car short distances. I can bring up food to my kid. Up, never down.”
How Selma Blair helped Christina Applegate recognize her MS symptoms
Actress Selma Blair, 53, was also diagnosed with MS in 2018. According to Applegate, Blair’s battle with the disease gave Applegate the courage to seek her own diagnosis.
“I was sitting in Selma’s living room, our children playing, and I told Selma I’d been having this weird tingling in my feet. She said, ‘You must get tested for MS.’ [Even my doctor doubted it] but there it was. In essence, because of her, I’m going to have a better quality of life,” Applegate told British Vogue in May 2023. “Selma has had an incredible impact on the MS community but, more so, she’s had an impact on how the world views it.”
How Christina Applegate is doing now in her MS journey
While the latest reports of Applegate’s hospitalization have not been confirmed by her or her team, the actress has shared some heartbreaking health updates on her podcast MeSsy.
“I can’t even pick up my phone sometimes because now it’s traveled into my hands, so I’ll, like, try to go get my phone or get my remote to turn on the TV, or sometimes, I can’t even hold them. I can’t open bottles now,” Applegate said in November 2024. “I just lay in bed all the time. I mean, I worked for almost 50 years, so I’m like, I’m kind of okay with it.”
Less than six months later, Applegate shared another update with her listeners. “For three years since I was diagnosed, I’ve been in the hospital upwards of 30 times,” she said on her podcast.
She gets personal about her health in her memoir
In Applegate’s memoir released earlier this year, she shared never-before-seen insights about her personal life and her health journey.
“I wish I could say that I am a miracle. Though most days it’s very hard to believe, and in any case, I don’t want to minimize what this disease does to a human body and soul,” Applegate wrote. “The pain I felt initially was not like it is these days. Back then, it was more of an ‘I‐have‐no‐strength’ kind of pain rather than the often excruciating agony I’m in now…When I wake up, I often can’t get my arm to move far enough to grab the cup of water by my bed or my phone from its charger. My stomach frequently slows to a halt, leaving me to regularly rush to the emergency room in agony.”
Applegate also shared that she and her daughter Sadie, now 15, didn’t talk about her MS at first.
“For the longest time, Sadie didn’t want to talk about my illness. Even these days, if it comes up, she says, ‘It’s fine.’ It’s not fine. It has devastated her life,” Applegate wrote. “MS is a disease of progression, but it’s also a disease of roller coasters. Some days I can bear to dance, others I fear the wheelchair.”
Why Christina Applegate advocates for MS awareness
Along with her podcast and memoir, the former Married With Children star has continued to appear on a variety of red carpets. She has stepped away from acting, though, and has decided to focus her efforts on educating the public about MS.
“We need a community. We need a bunch of us talking to each other—caretakers and children of people with MS and all this stuff. I just want to have a kumbaya with everybody right now because there’s so much sadness with this disease,” Applegate told the Los Angeles Times earlier this year.
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