Christina Applegate has shared that she first noticed symptoms of MS while filming Dead to Me.
The 53-year-old actress, best known for playing Jen Harding in the Netflix comedy, was diagnosed with the lifelong autoimmune disease in 2021 during production of the show’s third and final season.
Multiple sclerosis disrupts communication between the brain and nerves throughout the body. It can lead to symptoms such as numbness, vision issues, bladder control problems, muscle pain and spasms, extreme fatigue, and, in some cases, paralysis.
While there is no cure for the autoimmune condition, medication can help manage its symptoms.
Christina Applegate recently shared the first symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS) she experienced while filming *Dead to Me* in 2019. Speaking on her podcast MeSsy, which she co-hosts with fellow actress and MS patient Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Applegate recalled the moment she first noticed something was wrong.
During the pilot episode, she had to run across a field for a scene but unexpectedly fell. “I remember falling that day,” she said. “Hi, first sign of MS!”
Liz Feldman, the director of the Netflix series, was present at the time and reflected on the incident: “I remember you losing your balance a couple of times, but it was hard to pinpoint why. We had been shooting for 14 or 15 hours, and at the time, it just seemed like exhaustion.”
Feldman, 47, also spoke about Applegate’s diagnosis, saying: “There’s no handbook for this. I could sense that she was scared and that something in her body wasn’t working the way she wanted it to.”
Feldman recalled reassuring Applegate during filming, saying, “I told her so many times that it’s just a TV show; we’re making a TV show and it’s so silly, you know, at the end of the day!” However, she also recognized that something serious was happening. “I knew Christina well enough to know that something major had to be going on because she’s an extreme professional.”
Applegate previously shared with Variety that she initially dismissed her symptoms. However, as she began filming the third season of Dead to Me, she felt as if she had been “hit by a truck” and had no idea what was happening.
“It was very scary for me because this body that I had known was no longer mine,” she recalled. “We had to kind of work around that until, finally, I had answers.”
She went on to describe the moment she received her diagnosis: “I found out I had MS while we were shooting on a Monday. I went home, and the doctor said, ‘I need to do this meeting with you,'” she explained. “I could feel that this Zoom was not going to be good news. It sucked, I’m not going to lie.”
By the summer of 2021, Applegate’s mobility had worsened to the point where she needed a wheelchair to get to set. In response, the show’s producers adjusted her scenes to make filming more manageable for her.
“That would not happen anywhere else. So my gratitude toward you guys being humans, because you should be humans and love other humans!, is, like, I can’t even tell you. That’s not the normal reaction!” she shared on the podcast.
