The actress, 49, took to Twitter late Monday night to make the devastating revelation, as she admitted that it’s been a “tough road.”
She wrote: “Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey. But 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. Unless some a****** blocks it.”
Mother-of-one Applegate, who is married to Dutch musician Martyn LeNoble, added in a follow-up tweet: “As one of my friends that has MS said ‘we wake up and take the indicated action’. And that’s what I do. So now I ask for privacy. As I go through this thing. Thank you xo.”
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society describes MS as “an unpredictable disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body.”
“The cause of MS is still unknown,” states the non-profit organization on its website. “Scientists believe that a combination of environmental and genetic factors contribute to the risk of developing MS.
“The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, with at least two to three times more women than men being diagnosed with the disease.”
Anchorman star Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2008 and subsequently underwent a double mastectomy. Her cancer battle was written into Netflix series Dead to Me, with her character, Jen Harding, having had a double mastectomy.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of characters out there with double mastectomies,” she told USA Today in 2019. “But I went through it, and it’s a horribly painful process—emotionally, spiritually, physically—and I never really talked about it. I thought this was my chance to tell a little bit about me, but also all the women that have gone through that.”
“I think about it every day,” she added. “Girls who go through this, we say to each other, ‘Yep, it’s been 10 years,’ but you’re never not aware that that’s something you’ve been through. Everything looks different. You have to shower and you’re like, ‘Oh, there they are. That happened.’”
Expressing a hope that her show would help women going through similar experiences feel less alone, she said: “It’s such a personal choice. I don’t know what anyone’s going to take away from that moment or scene, except for ‘Wow, I felt that way, too, and I’m going to be OK.’ Because you will. It’s OK to admit that you feel that way.”
Fellow actress Selma Blair, with whom Applegate co-starred in the 2002 movie The Sweetest Thing, revealed in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with MS.
Writing on Instagram, Blair stated that while she had been diagnosed two months before sharing the post, she had been enduring symptoms for years.
“I have Multiple Sclerosis. I am in an exacerbation,” she wrote, in part, adding: “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.”
