Christina Applegate's Health Journey: Inside the Actress' Life with Multiple Sclerosis
Christina Applegate's Health Journey: Inside the Actress' Life with Multiple Sclerosis
Caroline BlairThu, March 5, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
0
Christina Applegate at the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on February 26, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty -
Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2021 after experiencing symptoms on the Dead to Me set
The actress has shared about the "excruciating" pain and symptoms that arose after her diagnosis
Applegate reflected on her health in her 2026 memoir, You With the Sad Eyes
Christina Applegate has not held back when talking about her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis.
The Emmy-award winning actress announced in August 2021 that she had been diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder a few months prior. Applegate later explained that she began experiencing symptoms — like leg buckling and numbness — up to seven years before her official diagnosis.
Applegate has since taken a step back from acting to focus on her podcast, MeSsy, with friend and fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler (who also has MS). She also launched an online platform, Next in MS, where she and other people with the disease can relate to each other.
Prior to her MS diagnosis, Applegate survived a 2008 breast cancer diagnosis after undergoing a double mastectomy. Years later, after learning she carries the BRCA1 gene mutation that can cause a heightened risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer, she also had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.
“My life isn’t wrapped up with a bow,” Applegate told PEOPLE in February 2026. "People’s lives, sorry for lack of a better term, f---ing suck sometimes. So I’m being as honest and raw as I possibly can.”
Here's everything to know about Christina Applegate's health journey.
She was diagnosed with MS in 2021
Christina Applegate in Dead to Me.Credit: Saeed Adyani/Netflix
On Aug. 10, 2021, Applegate announced her MS diagnosis in a post on X.
"Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS," she wrote at the time. "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."
MS is a progressive autoimmune condition that "damages the protective cover around nerves called myelin in your central nervous system. It can cause muscle weakness, vision changes, numbness and memory issues,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Applegate also revealed that she had been diagnosed while filming the last season of her hit Netflix show, Dead to Me.
“My symptoms had started in the early part of 2021, and it was literally just tingling on my toes,” Applegate said during a March 2024 interview on Good Morning America. “And by the time we started shooting in the summer of that same year, I was being brought to set in a wheelchair. Like, I couldn’t walk that far.”
Applegate explained that after reflecting on her journey, she thinks she started experiencing symptoms "six or seven years" prior to her diagnosis. She saw a doctor after Selma Blair — who was diagnosed with MS in 2018 — told her to "get checked for MS."
"If not for her, it could've been way worse," Applegate said.
Applegate walked with a cane to accept her Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2022
Christina Applegate during her Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony on November 14, 2022 in Hollywood, California.Credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty
Over one year after Applegate shared her diagnosis, she made her first public appearance to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Nov. 14, 2022. She attended the ceremony with a cane and had a manicure with letters that spelled "f u MS."
During the ceremony, Applegate gave an emotional speech during which she reflected on her lifelong career and also spoke about the people caring for her amid her MS journey.
"I don't say that I have friends, I have family," she said in part. "These people take care of me. They take care of me every day of my life, and without them, I don't know what I would do."
Applegate also joked about her diagnosis and quipped, "Oh, by the way, I have a disease. Did you not notice? I'm not wearing shoes! Anywho, you're supposed to laugh at that."
Applegate paused her acting career amid her diagnosis
Christina Applegate attends the 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards on January 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
After receiving the coveted star, Applegate reflected on her career and told Variety that she'd had to reevaluate her future in acting amid her MS journey.
“Now my life is a different story,” she told the publication. “People are going to see me for the first time as a disabled person, and it’s very difficult. So, for me, two years ago would have been so much better! But maybe this time it’s more poignant. I don’t know.”
When asked if the Dead to Me final season was her last big role, she replied, "I’m pretty convinced that this was it, you know?”
However, she clarified that she still hoped to produce projects and also reiterated that she was still "just a newbie to all of this."
"I’m trying to figure it out — and I’m also in mourning for the person that I was," she added. "I have to find a place that’s as loving as my set was, where they won’t think I’m a diva by saying, ‘Hey, I can only work five hours.' "
She made a surprise appearance at the 2024 Emmy Awards
Christina Applegate and host Anthony Anderson speak onstage during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on January 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty
While Applegate has taken a step back from acting, she surprised audience members when she presented the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy at the Emmy Awards in January 2024.
When Applegate walked out with a cane in one hand and host Anthony Anderson's arm in the other, she received a standing ovation.
Advertisement
"Thank you so much,” Applegate said. “Oh my God, you're totally shaming me with disability by standing up. It's fine . . . Body not by Ozempic! We don't have to applaud every time I do something."
The Bad Moms actress later admitted that she "kind of blacked out" while talking onstage.
"People said, ‘Oh you were so funny.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what I said. Like, I don’t know what I was doing!' " she said on Good Morning America. "I got so freaked out that I didn’t even know what was happening anymore. I felt really beloved and it was really a beautiful thing."
Applegate said MS is the "worst thing that has ever happened to me"
Christina Applegate and Jean Smart attend Variety's TV FYC Fest on June 07, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Alberto Rodriguez/Variety via Getty
In the years since her diagnosis, Applegate has not shied away from candidly detailing the “unimaginable” pain of MS — including vomiting, diarrhea and being hospitalized 30 times.
“I live kind of in hell. I’m not out a lot, so this is a little difficult, just for my system,” she said on Good Morning America. “I’m never going to wake up and go, ‘This is awesome!’ I’m just going to tell you that. It’s just not going to happen. I wake up and I’m reminded every day.”
Applegate called her pain "excruciating," but said she was getting "used to it."
“I’m isolating and that’s kind of how I’m dealing with it is by not going anywhere because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard,” she said.
The Friends actress continued going into detail about her symptoms and revealed that she has around 30 lesions on her brain as a result of MS.
"(There are) sores all over my brain. My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot," she said on a March 2024 episode of Armchair Expert. "I'm not happy about the ones in my brain."
She further revealed that sometimes she feels "seizure-y" in her brain and her "hands go weird."
In May 2025, Applegate appeared on an episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend where she said that most people "wouldn't be able to do" what she has to do every single day.
“This is the worst thing I've ever had in my life,” she told O’Brien. "It's the worst thing I've ever gone through."
She experienced an "intense" relapse of MS symptoms in 2024
Christina Applegate and Sadie Grace LeNoble at the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on February 26, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty
Applegate explained in an April 2024 episode of her MeSsy podcast that she endured an "intense" relapse a few months prior.
"Intense pain in my legs," Applegate reflected. "Not being able to walk to the bathroom without feeling like I'm going to fall. Insane tingling that just has spurts of tingles that are weird coming from like my butt down."
She added that she hadn't been able to sleep for 24 hours, "because my eye is doing something weird where every time I close my eye to go to sleep my right eye starts to shift like this."
"I'm a little concerned about that," Applegate continued. "And my legs have never been this bad so I don't know what's going on. Like, no energy. Legs are just done. I can't get circulation. I can't get them to stop hurting."
At the time of the episode's release, Applegate's rep told PEOPLE that her symptom relapse had since ended.
She spends most of her days in her bedroom
Christina Applegate speaks during the Light Up The Blues 7 Concert on April 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty
As she continues to live with MS, Applegate has found comfort in spending most of her days in her bed.
"I put my feet on the ground and they’re hurting, like, extraordinarily bad to the touch,” she said on a November 2024 episode of MeSsy. “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.”
Although she mostly spends time in her bedroom, Applegate makes a concerted effort to try to take her daughter Sadie — whom she shares with her husband, Martyn LeNoble — to school every morning.
“I want to take her; it’s my favorite thing to do. It’s the only time we have together by ourselves,” Applegate told PEOPLE in February 2026. “I tell myself, ‘Just get her there safely and get home so you can get back into bed.’ And that’s what I do.”
Applegate said she hopes to "inspire" people with her memoir
'You With the Sad Eyes' memoirCredit: Little, Brown and Company
Applegate released her memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, on March 3, 2026. Ahead of the release, she spoke to PEOPLE about how she wanted to convey all aspects of her life — from her challenging upbringing in Laurel Canyon to her MS diagnosis.
“We all have come from somewhere, some places more painful than others, and it’s what you do with it, I guess,” she said. “This is not an inspirational book, by any means. But it can inspire.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
