Originally appeared on E! Online
Christina Applegate is sharing a candid update on her health.
Years after sharing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, the Married…with Children alum opened up about how her condition has rendered her bedridden due to chronic pain. But even through Christina’s struggles with MS, spending time with her 15-year-old daughter Sadie—who she shares with husband Martyn LeNoble—at school drop-off is worth fighting for.
“I want to take her; it’s my favorite thing to do,” Christina told People in an interview published Feb. 24. “It’s the only time we have together by ourselves”
“I tell myself, ‘Just get her there safely and get home so you can get back into bed,’” the 54-year-old explained. “And that’s what I do.”
Since being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, which impacts the central nervous system, the Dead to Me actress has been candid about how the condition, which she went public with in 2021, has impacted on her life.
“My life isn’t wrapped up with a bow,” she explained. “People’s lives, sorry for lack of a better term, f–king suck sometimes. So, I’m being as honest and raw as I possibly can.”
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Part of her candor includes sharing how MS has affected her daughter.
“In my situation, Sadie only knew me as healthy and a runner and a Pelotoner and a dancer—and she only knew that,” Christina explained to friend Jamie-Lynn Sigler on the Aug. 26 episode of their MeSsy podcast. “So then when this came about in 2021, she was, like, stoic about it.”
“I see her look at me when I’m in bed,” she continued. “And can’t quite move or, I want to go say goodnight to her in her room but I can’t quite get down the hallway for whatever reason my legs aren’t working that day.”
Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
As Christina’s illness becomes her family’s new normal, she explained how it has “broken” Sadie.
“She didn’t know this,” the Emmy winner continued. “It was like losing the mom she had to this f–king thing. And the more she’s gotten older now, I think the more it’s hurting her.”
To further share her experience with the disease, Christina recently made the decision to give her fans an even closer look at her life by launching a new social media account.
“If you told me a year ago that I’d be on Instagram, I would have said, F–k off!” she wrote in an Oct. 16 post on the platform. “But here I am, so I’m going to do it my way. Real, raw, honest.”
As Christina continues to document her journey with MS, read on for a closer look at everything she’s shared so far…
Health Journey
Christina Applegate shared she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021.
“Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS,” she shared on her social media channels that August. “It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a–hole blocks it.”
First Public Appearance
“Oh, by the way, I have a disease,” she joked during her November 2022 Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony, her first public appearance since her MS diagnosis. “Did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes.”
Early Symptoms
Christina believes her MS journey actually began “six or seven years” before her 2021 diagnosis.
“I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we’d be shooting and my leg would buckle,” Christina explained during a March 2024 interview on Good Morning America. “I really just put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather. Then nothing would happen for months, and I didn’t pay attention.”
By the time she was shooting the Netflix series’ third and final season, the actress said she was “being brought to set in a wheelchair.”
“I couldn’t move that far,” she recalled, “so I had to tell everybody because I needed help.”
Making Moves
The Dead to Me star captioned this photo of her cane collection amid her battle with MS: “Walking sticks are now part of my new normal.”
Strong Statement
Just Jokes
Healing Through Humor
“I make these jokes because if I don’t, I’ll suffocate,” Christina shared on a March 2024 episode on Armchair Expert, explaining why she often pokes fun at her condition. “I’ll be done.”
MS On Her Mind
“I have 30 lesions on my brain,” she said on the same podcast. “My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot.”
Legions are caused by the immune system attacking the myelin sheath around nerves, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.
Getting Candid
Christina hasn’t held back when it comes to sharing her journey.
“It sucks,” the Anchorman actress told late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel of her daily struggles with MS. “I’m not going to lie. I think anyone who has MS isn’t going to be like, ‘This is the best thing that ever happened to me!'”
In Her Bubble
When talking about her day-to-day life with the disease, Christina told Good Morning America in March 2024, “I live kind of in hell.”
“But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better,” she added. “Right now, I’m isolating, and that’s kind of how I’m dealing with it—by not going anywhere because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard.”
The Sweetest Support
Christina credited her Sweetest Thing costar Selma Blair—who was diagnosed with MS in 2018—for urging her to get tested for the disease.
“She said, ‘You need to get checked for MS,'” Christina recalled during her GMA interview. “If not for her, it could’ve been way worse.”
Friendship Never Dies
Christina confirmed that Dead to Me will likely be her last onscreen credit, telling Vanity Fair in May 2023, “I can’t even imagine going to set right now.”
“I’m probably not going to work on-camera again, but I’m so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life,” she said of costar Linda Cardellini, “if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.
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