Christina Applegate took a shot at her debilitating condition on Monday when she made her first public appearance since revealing that multiple sclerosis has left her unable to walk without a cane and has caused her to gain 40 pounds. She showed off her freshly painted nails that said “FU MS.”
The 50-year-old actress who has won an Emmy Award was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday.
Applegate was barefoot and used a cane to walk. Katey Sagal, her Married with Children co-star, assisted her in standing on the podium.
She got teary-eyed when she talked about how her friends and family helped her get through the painful disease.
The actress first said that she had MS in August 2021. MS is a disease in which the immune system eats away at the nerves’ protective covering and stops the flow of information between the brain and the rest of the body.
This month, she said that her illness had made her so weak that she couldn’t walk without a cane and that she had gained 40 pounds.
On Monday, at the ceremony, Applegate got emotional as she thanked her friends for helping her deal with her condition every day.
‘This day means more to me that you could possibly imagine,’ she began, adding: ‘I don’t say I have friends, I have family. These people take care of me every day of my life, and without them I don’t know what I would do.’
But, she said, ‘the most important person in this world’ is her daughter, Sadie Grace.
‘You are so much more than even you know,’ the famed actress told her daughter. ‘You are so beautiful and kind and loving and smart and interesting, and I am blessed every day that I get to wake up and take you to school.
‘You are my everything,’ Applegate said. ‘Thank you for standing by my side through all of this.’
She then looked back at the crowd and said: ‘Oh and by the way: I have a disease. Did you not notice?’
Applegate was in the middle of making the last season of her show, “Dead to Me,” when she found out she had MS. The show took a five-month break so she could start her treatment.
However, the Anchorman star continued to film the final season.
‘I had an obligation. The powers that be were like, “Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together [with previously recorded footage],”‘ Applegate previously told The New York Times. ‘I said, “No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.”‘
She also shared that when production of the show — which has earned her two Emmy nominations — paused ‘There was the sense of, “Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better.”‘
But the actress said, “There is nothing better,” and added, ‘I’m never going to accept this. I’m p***ed.’
Taking the break was “good” for her in the end: ‘I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So I needed that time. Although it’s not like I came on the other side of it, like, “Woohoo, I’m totally fine.”‘
The beautiful woman from Los Angeles also said that she could see signs of the disease in the past, like when she lost her balance during a dance scene in the first season.
‘I wish I had paid attention. But who was I to know?’ she said.
The star said that when she got back to work, she was less mobile and had to use a wheelchair to get to the set. For some shots, a sound technician had to hold her legs up.
She said that she couldn’t film herself walking into a room because she would need help and have to lean against doors to stay upright.
The star also said she doesn’t know if she’ll watch the last season because it’s too painful, but she wanted to finish filming it for her co-star Linda Cardellini and the show’s creator, Liz Feldman.
‘If people hate it, if people love it, if all they can concentrate on is, “Ooh, look at the cripple,” that’s not up to me. I’m sure that people are going to be, like, “I can’t get past it.” Fine, don’t get past it, then. But hopefully people can get past it and just enjoy the ride and say goodbye to these two girls,’ she stated.
In the show, Applegate plays the sarcastic widow Jen Harding, who meets the free-spirited Judy Hale, played by Cardellini, at a grief support group. Jen’s husband died in a hit-and-run accident, and she meets Judy.
Their unlikely friendship eventually becomes complicated by secrets, lies, and an accidental murder that bonds them for life.
In May 2019, the first 10 episodes of Dead to Me’s first season were released on a streaming service. The dark comedy came back in May 2020 for its second season, which also had 10 episodes.
Even though the show was picked up for a third season in June 2020, production had to stop because of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent Hollywood production shutdown.
Recently, the trailer for the last season of the popular Netflix show was finally released.
Applegate first appeared on TV in an episode of the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives on March 7, 1972. She played the baby son of the character played by her mother, Nancy Priddy, in that episode.
In 1981, she played a dancer in the movie Beatlemania and a cowgirl in an episode of the NBC Western drama Father Murphy.
In the 1985 Showtime comedy Washingtoon, the actress played the daughter of a new, idealistic congressman, who was played by Thomas Callaway.
Heart of the City, an ABC crime drama that ran for 13 episodes in 1986–1987, gave Applegate her first big role on TV. She played the daughter of a police detective, who was played by Robert Desiderio.
Later in 1987, Applegate was cast as the sassy and sexy Kelly Bundy, which is her most famous role. This was after the actors who played the Bundy children in Married… Tina Caspary and Hunter Carson were cut from the Married… with Children pilot because the show’s producers thought they wouldn’t get along with O’Neill and Sagal.
She returned to television after the success of her previous show, Married… with Children, starring in Jesse as a single mother raising her nine-year-old son, Eric Lloyd.
From 1998 to 2000, NBC aired the comedy show. Jennifer Aniston’s character, Rachel Green’s middle sister, was played by Christina Applegate on Friends. Three years after the show ended, she won her only Emmy for outstanding guest actress in the comedy series.
