Christina Applegate IVE GOT TO FIGHT

THE STAR OPENS UP ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL TOLL OF LIVING WITH MS

As Christina Applegate comes to terms with living with multiple sclerosis, she is speaking out with a raw honesty she says she hasn’t expressed since finding fame in 1987 as a teenager on the sitcom Married… with Children. “I’ve been playing a character called Christina for 40 years, who I wanted everybody to think I was because it’s easier,” she told Good Morning America on March 13. “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.”

Part of that honesty, which she tempers with humour, involves not shying away from the harsh realities of the chronic central nervous system condition that she was diagnosed with in 2021 – from waking up with numbness and pain to facing balance, digestive and incontinence issues.

“They call it the invisible disease. It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people,” Applegate, 52, who is mum to daughter Sadie, 13, with husband Martyn LeNoble, says. “I’m in excruciating pain, but I’m just used to it now.”