Applegate and her 'MeSsy' podcast co-host, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, detail how their MS diagnoses affect their bodies.
Christina Applegate is getting candid about how the "devastation" of her multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms affects her family, particularly her 13-year-old daughter, Sadie, with husband Martyn LeNoble.
While discussing a recent family trip to visit her husband's family in the Netherlands with her MeSsy podcast co-host, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, 42, the Dead to Me actress admitted that she sometimes wonders how the struggles of her ongoing battle have affected her daughter.
"I've often thought it would be easier on everyone if I wasn't here, you know? That's a thought," Applegate, 52, shared. "Like, wouldn't it be so much easier and not a burden on my daughter who was on vacation and watching her mom sleep all day? And me not being able to go with her to the Barbie movie and stuff because I can't sit through a movie because my legs hurt too much. Just things like that. I think, 'What is this doing to her?' And that's where my heart breaks constantly. "
Applegate, who recalled how a "strange superpower" motivated her to walk without her cane during the family trip, lamented how her burst of energy resulted in a severe lack of strength afterward, which her daughter noticed.
"She came in last night, I'd been sleeping since like 4 o'clock or something. Because since I've been home, my body's been like, 'Yeah, f**k you. It was fun while it lasted while you were walking, now we're gonna shut you down.' I came home and she came in and I was half asleep, and she just kissed me on my forehead and said 'I love you,' and walked out," she remembered. "And I just started crying when she left because I was like, she just missed me. I had been asleep for five hours and wasn't there for her, to make her dinner or do anything. I was just out."
The actress hoped the podcast's listeners could relate to her story. "It's hard not to be and I think anyone listening to this, who has this, I hope you all feel like we feel and just know that you're not alone and feeling those feelings of desperation," Applegate said. She cited Sigler for her ability to look on the "positive side" of things because she often couldn't see that side.
"You have to let yourself feel everything," Sigler responded.
Applegate first went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in August 2021 -- a "potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system)," according to the Mayo Clinic.
"It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition," she tweeted at the time. "It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a**hole blocks it."
After coming forward about her diagnosis, Applegate -- who began in the entertainment industry as a baby -- was met with an outpouring of support, including from her The Sweetest Thing co-star, Selma Blair, who was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018, as well as Josh Gad, Sean Maguire and many others.
Although Sigler publicly revealed her diagnosis in 2016, she had been diagnosed 15 years earlier, when she was 20 years old and starring on The Sopranos.
"For so long, I have been celebrated for being the strong one and the positive one that it felt like I was not that if I would admit that some days were hard," Sigler told Good Morning America's Robin Roberts in an intimate sit-down interview last month. "But she really pushed me to be able to say that, because I thought I was letting people down if I would talk about how hard it was sometimes."
The duo teamed up to share their journey with MS on their podcast, which Sigler described as having the listener "eavesdropping" on their intimate conversations. "That's all it is, and to me, those are my favorite podcasts, where you feel like you just got to, like, somehow listen in on a conversation with people," she shared. "There's no format, no agenda, no questions that were coming, and it's messy. It's for sure a mess."
Applegate said she hopes listeners will feel seen and heard about their own issues, whether they have MS or something else.
"I've been playing a character called Christina for 40 years, who I wanted everybody to think I was because it's easier," she added, admitting that she is opening up in a way she never has before. "But this is, it's kind of my coming out party. Like, this is... the person I've been this whole time. I was kind of putting on a little act for everybody for so long because I just thought that was easier -- be light, be funny ... don't make people uncomfortable. And I don't care anymore."
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