Source : @Variety
LOS ANGELES — American actress Christina Applegate has revealed that she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), five years after she went public with the condition that ended her on-screen career, Variety reported on Tuesday (Oct 20).
The 54-year-old star of “Dead to Me” made the disclosure as she returned to her podcast, “MeSsy”, after a seven-month break taken because of her health. Speaking tearfully, Applegate recalled that her doctor “came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS’”, according to remarks first reported by People magazine.
“I was, like, not happy at all,” she said. “Everybody else was so happy.”
Applegate said the news had not brought any relief, as her symptoms remain and the cause of her illness is now a mystery. “You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better … If anything, I’ve gotten worse,” she said. “So I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me.” She added that her doctors would now investigate what has been happening to her since 2021 and why the misdiagnosis occurred.
In the second part of the episode, the actress grew emotional as she reflected on the past five years. “I’ve gone through a great depression because of it. But I lost everything. I lost my job … It stopped my life,” she said. “I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office. I can’t walk from the car to the room. I’m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, ‘You don’t have MS.’ Nothing magical happened.”
Applegate said she felt as though she had “let everybody down” after becoming a prominent advocate for the MS community, and that she remained in a “state of shock”, using an expletive to describe the experience. Addressing her co-host, she said: “It’s this weird feeling because I became this — you and I, the poster children for MS.” She added that she had previously had a reason for why her days were so difficult, “and now I don’t have a reason and it’s very unnerving and it’s very confusing for me.”
Applegate announced in August 2021 that she had been diagnosed with MS, a disease that damages the central nervous system. She learned of the diagnosis while filming the third and final season of the Netflix dark comedy “Dead to Me”, and retired from acting after the series ended. Her performance in the show earned her Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award nominations.
Since then, she has become a vocal campaigner for people living with the disease. In March 2024 she launched “MeSsy” with fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, best known for “The Sopranos”, who was diagnosed with MS in 2001. The pair have used the podcast to talk openly about living with chronic illness and to raise awareness of the condition.
Applegate first found fame as a child actress on the sitcom “Married… with Children” and later won a Primetime Emmy Award for her guest role as Amy, the sister of Jennifer Aniston’s character Rachel, in “Friends”.
The original Variety post can be viewed on X: https://x.com/Variety/status/2112512533076529543.
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