Actress Christina Applegate has revealed she has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
The former “Married… with Children” star said she learned of the diagnosis months ago and has received support from friends who also have the disease, in which the immune system attacks the protective covering of the nerves.
“It’s been a tough road,” the 49-year-old wrote late Monday night on Twitter. “But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it.”
A rep for the actress told TheWrap there was no further statement or information to share beyond her tweets at this time.
According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple scleroris is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and central nervous system and can cause permanent damage or deterioration of the nerves. There’s no cure, and the cause is unknown. But treatments can help speed recovery from attacks and manage symptoms.
Applegate, the “Anchorman” star who rose to fame as Kelly Bundy in the 1980s and ’90s sitcom “Married… with Children,” has most recently starred in the Netflix dark comedy series “Dead to Me,” as Jen Harding. The role, in which she deals with her husband’s sudden death in a hit-and-run, earned her an Emmy nomination.
“I’ve had to go through my own grief and loss in my life, and it was messy,” she said in 2019 while discussing her role on “Dead to Me” with TheWrap. “But I also was working and had to buck up and put it all away.
“A lot of what Jen is going through was cathartic for me, to be able to go there and open up those doors again and examine that loss and pain that I’ve had to deal with in my life,” Applegate said. “I think all of us at the end of those three months [of shooting] were exhausted.”
Netflix said in July 2020 it had renewed “Dead to Me” for a third and final season. Production details and potential air dates aren’t known.
Actress Selma Blair revealed in 2018 she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Blair was at the time working on the Netflix sci-fi series “Another Life.”
“By the grace of the lord, and will power and the understanding producers at Netflix, I have a job,” she wrote on Instagram. “A wonderful job. I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken gps. But we are doing it. And I laugh and I don’t know exactly what I will do precisely but I will do my best.”
Blair went on to say that she had symptoms for years and was relieved to know what she was dealing with.