Actresses Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler are opening up for the first time together about the health issue they both share: multiple sclerosis.
Applegate, 52, and Sigler, 42, sat side-by-side as they spoke with Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts about the bond they’ve developed over their shared frustrations with the incurable disease, with which Applegate was diagnosed in 2021 and Sigler was diagnosed in 2001.
“She’s doing this [holding my hand] because I have the tremor,” Applegate said of Sigler, citing one of the many physical side effects of MS.
“Well, it’s because I love you, but that too,” Sigler said.
Sigler was just 20 years old and starring in The Sopranos when she was diagnosed with MS, an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks myelin, the tissue that surrounds nerves, including those in the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
It wasn’t until 15 years later in 2016, just after she got married, that Sigler revealed her diagnosis publicly.
Applegate publicly revealed her MS diagnosis in 2021, which was discovered after she was unable to walk on her own while filming the final season of her hit Netflix show, Dead to Me.
“[I]t was, like, literally just tingling on my toes,” Applegate told Roberts. “And by the time we started shooting in the summer of that same year, I was being brought to set in a wheelchair.”
Applegate credits her former co-star Selma Blair, who was diagnosed with MS in 2018, with urging her to get tested for the disease: “She knew. If not for her, it could have been way worse.”
Applegate and Sigler are sharing their journey with MS in a new podcast, titled MeSsy.
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