Christina Applegate Talks MS and Return To Acting In New Podcast
Christina Applegate has stepped away from acting since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, but she's said she's hopeful she can return to the entertainment industry in some capacity in the future.
In the first episode of her new podcast, she shared how she's currently thinking about eventually going back to the job she's loved since she was a kid.
To broach the subject, her co-host, fellow actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who's lived with MS for 22 years, said to Applegate, "I will let you say that you're done acting for now, but you are amazing, and wonderful and important and so talented, and your talent is very singular and special. And there's no other person that's like you."
Sigler, who starred in "The Sopranos," went on to suggest that Applegate be open to playing a character who has MS, adding that the role wouldn't have to be all about her illness.
"I could not do that, it would be too sappy," Applegate quipped, prompting her friend respond, "I'm not going to press that on you now, but I do know that's in your future."
Applegate then conceded that she misses acting.
"I do miss that because in all honesty, the only thing I ever had my entire life was work. ... I grew up on sets. ... The inner workings, the outer workings of being on a set is all I really know. I love that place."
"I've taken this last, you know, since we stopped working to implode, explode, be sad, watch a lot of crap TV, do whatever I need," she continued. "I've never been able to sleep in so it's been really nice to not have to be somewhere and not have to be on and push. But I know that at some point I'm going to be like, OK, when does someone need me somewhere?"
"And a lot of hands will be raised," Sigler replied.
The podcast, which is executive produced by Applegate, Sigler and Allison Bresnick of Wishbone productions, launched on March 19 and will bring on friends of the two hosts as guests to discuss their health and other issues.
Applegate has been living with MS since 2021. She shared her diagnosis publicly in August that year. She's previously opened up about the symptoms that led to her diagnosis, such as tingling in her extremities, difficulty walking and feeling unbalanced. She believes they started up to six or seven years before she knew what she had.
"I really just kind of put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather,” she said in an ABC News interview. “And then nothing would happen for, like, months, and I didn’t pay attention.”
As for her current symptoms, Applegate recently told People that they're "worse in the morning, like crazy-town bad. The pain and the numbness and the balance. It’s horrible. So of course first thing in the morning, I’m real pissed off about it all. But I don’t want to be like this always."
One of the last times Applegate spoke about a return to acting was in June 2023.
“We don’t know what my future as an actress is going to be,” she told Variety. “How can I handle it? How can I go onto a set and call the shots of what I need as far as my boundaries, physically?”
In November the prior year, she told the New York Times she thought the most recent season of "Dead To Me" was her last acting job. “I’m pretty convinced that this was it,” she said.
Maura Hohman
Maura Hohman is the senior health editor for TODAY.com and has been covering health and wellness since 2015.
