Christina Applegate Makes Brutally Candid Confession About Being 'Trapped' Living With MS
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 12: Christina Applegate attends the 25th Annual Critics' Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on January 12, 2020 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)
Christina Applegate is sharing another candid look at life with MS.
In a newly released episode of her podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, MeSsy, the Dead to Me actress opened up about the depths of her depression: a direct result of the impact the diagnosis has had on her life.
Recorded shortly after making a surprise appearance at the 2024 Emmy Awards—which earned her an uproarious standing ovation—the actress revealed that she was "in a depression" that she hadn't "felt...for years," leaving her in a very dark mental state.
Her mental health was so bad at the time she admitted that it was even scaring her, "because it [felt] really fatalistic."
"I’m trapped in, like, this darkness right now that I haven’t felt [in], like, I don’t even know how long, probably 20-something years,” she admitted, adding that, as a result of her battle with multiple sclerosis, she hasn't been "enjoy[ing] living."
"I don’t enjoy things anymore,” she added, preferring to spend her time lying in bed.
Even the award show, where she was highly lauded, was “the hardest day of [her] life," leading to "two days straight" of sleep. "I couldn't function."
Sigler, who also suffers from the neurological disease, naturally agreed with the difficulties that come with "[living] in a disabled body," but advocated for her friend to keep going. "I will not take that away from you and I am right there with you; it is hard." But she advised Applegate that it becomes even harder "when you compare it to how it used to be."
"In the moments where I have just a little more acceptance [that] this is the way it is, it takes a little bit of the extra suffering out," Sigler added. "[But] it's not a reason enough for you to stop living because I sit here across from you, and you still make me laugh like nobody else can,” she told Applegate. “You still make me smile. You make me feel loved."
She went on to point out that people give the actress exactly what she puts out. "I want you so deeply to feel that," she said, referring to the love fans sent Applegate during her appearance. "I can't let you give up."
Applegate has been very open about her life since being diagnosed in 2021, sharing before that it's like living "in hell" and venting her frustrations with the way it's affected her ability to live—including the brain damage it's caused.
Next: Christina Applegate Describes 'Intense' Struggle With MS: 'Don't Know What's Going on'
