Christina Applegate is sharing what it’s like living with MS, and probably getting ahead of the online trolls who delight in making cruel comments, she wants everyone to know that she knows she’s not what she used to be. With the final season dropping on Netflix on Nov. 17, Applegate said, “This is the first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am. I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that.”
She says making the third and final season of Dead to Me after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis is the hardest thing she’s ever done.
The 50-year-old actress also known for Married With Children and Anchorman, was diagnosed with the disease of the central nervous system, which interrupts the flow of information within the brain as well as between the brain and body, while in production on the final season of the Netflix show in the summer of 2021. The show took a five month pause so she could start treatment. She told the New York Times in a new interview that coming back and pushing through to the end took a lot.
“I had an obligation” to finish telling the story, which has earned her two Emmy nominations, Applegate said. “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]. I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.'”
There were a lot of adjustments necessary, but Applegate has been a seasoned actress since she was in kindergarten, and she as well as others had to face the truth that she could no longer do what she had always done.
She realizes that there is no quick fix for her disease: “There is no better. But [the pause] was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me… Although it’s not like I came on the other side of it, like, ‘Woohoo, I’m totally fine.'”
Nor did she find acceptance. “No. I’m never going to accept this. I’m pissed,” she said.
When she returned to the set of the dark comedy, her mobility had declined. She needed a wheelchair to get to set. She had trouble navigating the steps to her trailer. Her body gave out while filming, especially in the heat. A sound technician had to hold up her legs, out of camera range, to get shots. She could no longer film establishing shots showing her walking into a room because she couldn’t do it unassisted. She would have to open doors in scenes just to lean against them to keep her up.
“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,” Applegate said. “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.”
But despite the struggles and disappointments, Christina tries to live as normal a life as possible and do it with grace. Just days after she spoke about her life with MS, she posted a picture in a Halloween costume as an alien.
