Christina Applegate says she doesn’t ‘enjoy living’ anymore after MS diagnosis: ‘I’m trapped in this darkness’
Christina Applegate is in a dark place after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
The “Dead to Me” actress, 52, said that she’s “in a depression right now” on the June 4 episode of her “MeSsy” podcast with “The Sopranos” alum Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS.
“Like a real, f – – k-it-all depression where it’s kind of scaring me too a little bit, because it feels really fatalistic,” Applegate continued. “I’m trapped in this darkness right now that I haven’t felt like … I don’t even know how long, probably 20-something years.”
Applegate candidly admitted that she has a negative outlook on her life because of her health struggles.
“This is being really honest … I don’t enjoy living,” she said. “I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.”
The new podcast episode was actually recorded earlier this year after Applegate — who announced her MS diagnosis in 2021 — made a surprise appearance at the Emmy Awards in January, where she got a standing ovation from the audience.
Applegate said that was “the hardest day of my life,” adding that she slept for the next two days after the award show.
After Sigler, 43, told her co-host that MS “is not a reason enough for you to stop living,” Applegate explained that she’s “avoided” going to therapy since her diagnosis because she’s “so afraid to start crying.”
“I just am so, I’m so afraid for those floodgates to open and that I won’t be able to stop.”
Applegate was filming the third and final season of her Netflix comedy “Dead to Me” when she was diagnosed with MS.
She stepped away from the public eye to focus on her health, but made an exception at the Emmys earlier this year when she walked onstage with a cane to present the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series to Ayo Edebiri for “The Bear.”
Two months later, Applegate told “Good Morning America” host Robin Roberts that she “blacked out” during her Emmys appearance.
“People said, ‘Oh, you were so funny,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what I said. I don’t know what I was doing,’ ” Applegate explained. “I got so freaked out that I didn’t even know what was happening anymore.”
Applegate has been using her new podcast to share updates on her ongoing battle with MS.
She said in April that she hadn’t showered in three weeks because of the pain from the disease.
“Thank God I’m always alone so that no one smells me,” the actress said. “[Sadie’s] always like, ‘Oh Mama, that’s bad.’ I make her smell my armpits, just to make her vomit.”
She also told fans that she’s experiencing “intense pain” and has “no energy” anymore, and the only thing she can do is “lay in a dark room, watching TV and wanting it all to go away.”
Applegate, who rose to fame as a child star on the sitcom “Married… With Children,” hinted at quitting acting because of her MS diagnosis.
“Right now, I couldn’t imagine getting up at 5 a.m. and spending 12 to 14 hours on a set; I don’t have that in me at this moment,” she told the LA Times in 2023.
