Christina Applegate Details “Offensive” Anchorman Salary Offer
Christina Applegate is planning for her future.
The Married…with Children alum, who went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021, got candid about the everyday aspects of living with the neurodegenerative disease, including preemptively looking ahead.
“For people who have a disease like this, you never know, you know?” Christina shared on the March 19 episode of NPR’s Wild Card. “I bought my plots already, OK? I bought them.”
The 54-year-old, mom to Sadie, 15, with husband Martyn LeNoble, confirmed she purchased multiple plots as there are “going to be three of us there,” although she did not specifically share who the others would be for.
“My friend and I are going to go take a picnic there,” Christina added. “It’s really pretty where it is.”
“I have to pick my tree out ’cause they’re going to plant a tree there ’cause it’s really sunny,” she continued. “And I want my visitors to not be sweating.”
The Bad Moms star noted that she’d been thinking about the particular area “for so long” and when she found it was available, she purchased it immediately. She feels that if she bought it now, “nobody has to deal with it” later, including her daughter.
And while she’s trying to plan for a worst-case scenario, Christina noted that the uncertainty of her future because of her MS diagnosis truly upsets her, as she’s “not comfortable because I’m going to hurt my kid.”
“My kid’s going to be hurt,” she said. “So I get really scared about that.”
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix
“I’m really afraid of it because of her,” Christina continued through tears. “I can’t even talk about—I don’t know what her life’s going to be like. And you don’t know when it’s going to be. Could be, like, anytime.”
Although the disease has left her mostly bedridden due to chronic pain, the Emmy winner previously discussed that she was doing everything she could to maintain a normal routine, like dropping Sadie off at school.
“I want to take her; it’s my favorite thing to do,” she told People in February. “It’s the only time we have together by ourselves.”
“I tell myself, ‘Just get her there safely and get home so you can get back into bed,’” she added. “And that’s what I do.”
For more from Christina about her difficult health journey, keep reading.
David Fisher/Shutterstock
Health Journey
Christina Applegate shared she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021.
“Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS,” she shared on her social media channels that August. “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–hole blocks it.”
Stewart Cook/Shutterstock
First Public Appearance
“Oh, by the way, I have a disease,” she joked during her November 2022 Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony, her first public appearance since her MS diagnosis. “Did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes.”
Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
Early Symptoms
Christina believes her MS journey actually began “six or seven years” before her 2021 diagnosis.
“I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we’d be shooting and my leg would buckle,” Christina explained during a March 2024 interview on Good Morning America. “I really just put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather. Then nothing would happen for months, and I didn’t pay attention.”
By the time she was shooting the Netflix series’ third and final season, the actress said she was “being brought to set in a wheelchair.”
“I couldn’t move that far,” she recalled, “so I had to tell everybody because I needed help.”
X/Christina Applegate
Making Moves
The Dead to Me star captioned this photo of her cane collection amid her battle with MS: “Walking sticks are now part of my new normal.”
Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Strong Statement
Joined by her daughter Sadie Grace LeNoble, Christina had a simple message for multiple sclerosis while attending the 2023 SAG Awards: “F U MS.”
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Just Jokes
After a receiving standing ovation at the 2023 Emmys, the Married…With Children alum quipped, “You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up.”
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
Healing Through Humor
“I make these jokes because if I don’t, I’ll suffocate,” Christina shared on a March 2024 episode on Armchair Expert, explaining why she often pokes fun at her condition. “I’ll be done.”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
MS On Her Mind
“I have 30 lesions on my brain,” she said on the same podcast. “My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot.”
Legions are caused by the immune system attacking the myelin sheath around nerves, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.
Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images
Getting Candid
Christina hasn’t held back when it comes to sharing her journey.
“It sucks,” the Anchorman actress told late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel of her daily struggles with MS. “I’m not going to lie. I think anyone who has MS isn’t going to be like, ‘This is the best thing that ever happened to me!'”
Monica Schipper/WireImage
In Her Bubble
When talking about her day-to-day life with the disease, Christina told Good Morning America in March 2024, “I live kind of in hell.”
“But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better,” she added. “Right now, I’m isolating, and that’s kind of how I’m dealing with it—by not going anywhere because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard.”
KMazur/WireImage
The Sweetest Support
Christina credited her Sweetest Thing costar Selma Blair—who was diagnosed with MS in 2018—for urging her to get tested for the disease.
“She said, ‘You need to get checked for MS,'” Christina recalled during her GMA interview. “If not for her, it could’ve been way worse.”
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Friendship Never Dies
Christina confirmed that Dead to Me will likely be her last onscreen credit, telling Vanity Fair in May 2023, “I can’t even imagine going to set right now.”
“I’m probably not going to work on-camera again, but I’m so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life,” she said of costar Linda Cardellini, “if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.
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