Has no cure
MS is an autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord, causing symptoms like muscle stiffness, walking and speaking difficulties, and blurred or lost vision.
Nearly one million people in the U.S. live with the condition, which affects women 2–3 times more than men, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Multiple sclerosis has no cure. Treatments usually aim to help the body recover from flare-ups, reduce relapses, slow disease progression, and manage symptoms
Applegate, a breast cancer survivor, says her life has been anything but picture-perfect.
“People’s lives, sorry for lack of a better term, f**ing sck sometimes. So I’m being as honest and raw as I possibly can,” she said.
First symptoms
The actress began noticing early symptoms while filming the first season of Dead to Me, including tingling in her toes and a feeling that her legs were giving out. A few months later, she arrived on set in a wheelchair.
”It was very hard to figure it out because I remember one time it was like really late at night, we’d been shooting probably 14 or 15 hours. It seemed completely reasonable that anybody would be collapsing, you know?”
In 2022, she made her first public appearance since her diagnosis — barefoot — to receive her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“For some with MS, the feeling of shoes may hurt or make us feel off balance. So today I was me. Barefoot,” she wrote on X. She also used a cane for support, explaining that she can’t “stand for too long.”
Even small daily tasks are now challenging.
“With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day,” she said in 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**ing scks.”
Final acting role
Applegate also revealed that Dead to Me could be her final acting role, though she hopes to stay in the industry as a producer or voice actress. Throughout her journey, she has leaned on her trademark humor. At the 2024 Emmys, after receiving a standing ovation, she joked, “Thank you so much, oh my God. You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up; it’s fine. Body not by Oz*mpic.”
She has also been candid about the physical toll of the disease.
Speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast, she said she has 30 lesions on her brain, which sometimes cause a “seizure-y” sensation in her head.
“This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” she admitted. “I hate it so much. I’m so mad about it.” To support her mental health, she began seeing a therapist, calling it “a big thing for me to do.”
Alongside her ongoing battle with MS, Applegate has had a tumultuous personal history, which she explores in her upcoming memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, set for release on March 3.
Survived molestation and abuse
Since Applegate has spent a lot of time in bed recently, that very space — which has become a kind of sanctuary — also gave her the chance to write her book. In her book, she will detail her teen fame, toxic relationships, her mother’s struggles with substance dependency, breast cancer, and living with MS.
She admitted the book wasn’t easy to write, calling it ”about a little girl with sad eyes who ended up becoming Christina Applegate”.
“I think I had kind of the worst situation from 3 to 7, but there was stuff like that going on in all our homes,” she said.
“Single moms, men coming in and out, dr*gs. It’s always fun to see your mom crying on the floor and you not being taken care of.”
Her mother, Bewitched actress Nancy Priddy, had a boyfriend who was violent toward both her and young Christina. As a teenager, Christina also found herself drawn to violent men, whom she described as “broken birds that I wanted to fix.”
Applegate said her memoir is not meant to be purely inspirational, but she hopes it can still inspire.