Actress Christina Applegate opens up about being mostly bedridden due to multiple sclerosis

American actress Christina Applegate has revealed that she spends most of her day bedridden due to pain from multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic, often disabling autoimmune disease of the central nervous system.

Speaking to American entertainment publication People, the 54-year-old says the saddest part of her mobility loss is her inability to be a more active parent to her 15-year-old daughter Sadie.

However, Applegate is grateful that she is still able to drive Sadie to school and other activities, after which she returns to her bedroom.

“I want to take her; it’s my favourite thing to do. It’s the only time we have together. I tell myself, ‘Just get her there safely and get home so you can get back into bed.’ And that’s what I do,” she says.

The Emmy-winning actress and producer gave the interview ahead of the release of her memoir, You With The Sad Eyes, to be released on March 3. It will include details about her mother and American actress Nancy Priddy’s struggle with heroin addiction, and mentions Applegate being molested by a female babysitter when she was five.

Since 2013, she has been married to Dutch musician Martyn LeNoble, 56, Sadie’s father.

Applegate – who had been diagnosed with breast cancer before undergoing a bilateral mastectomy in 2008 – had previously shared that her MS symptoms appeared in early 2021, when her toes began tingling.

While filming a dance sequence for her drama-comedy series Dead To Me (2019 to 2022), she felt a loss of balance.

By mid-2021, she had to be taken to the set of the show in a wheelchair. Production was then suspended for five months. In August that year, she made her diagnosis public on Twitter, saying that she has gone through “a strange journey”.

“I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going,” she posted.

In 2024, she launched the podcast MeSsy with co-presenter, American actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, 44, who also has MS.

Applegate first broke through in Hollywood with the popular sitcom Married…With Children (1987 to 1997), playing Kelly Bundy, the daughter of a dysfunctional couple.

For her work in the sitcom Jesse (1998 to 2000), she earned her first Golden Globe nomination, after which she won an Outstanding Guest Actress Emmy for an appearance in the sitcom Friends (1994 to 2004).

She has also starred in popular comedy films, including Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead (1991) and Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004).