‘Kind Of In Hell’: Christina Applegate Opens Up About Living With MS

Christina Applegate got emotional when she recently discussed living with multiple sclerosis (MS) after being diagnosed in 2021.

The 52-year-old actress sat down with “Good Morning America” on Wednesday and said that despite getting a standing ovation from her peers when she walked on stage at the Emmy Awards, she lives “kind of in hell.” 

Applegate said she noticed something was off two years before she was diagnosed while filming her hit Netflix show “Dead To Me” in 2019.

“I noticed, the first season, we’d be shooting and I would buckle, my leg would buckle,” the actress 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.”

By the time they started shooting the final season of her show in the summer of 2021, she said she needed a wheelchair to get to the set.

“I needed someone to help me get there, and they were wonderful,” the actress explained, becoming emotional. “But I probably had it for many, many years, probably six or seven years.”

Applegate said it was her former co-star Selma Blair, who also has MS, who said she should get tested for the disease.

“She goes, ‘You need to be checked for MS.’ I said, ‘No, really?'” the star 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.”

During the interview, Applegate was joined by her friend, “Sopranos” star Jamie Lynn-Singer, who was diagnosed with MS when she was just 20. She praised Lynn-Singer for keeping her going through the tough 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 said these days, the “invisible disease” can be “very lonely” because it’s “hard to explain to people” what she’s going through.

“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.”

Applegate is married to Martyn LeNoble, and the two have a daughter, Sadie Grace, the “Today” show noted