Christina Applegate Jokes About MS Diagnosis While Finishing ‘Dead to Me’ Season 3
The conclusion of the Netflix series Dead to Me is all the more bittersweet because it coincides with star Christina Applegate’s real life diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Applegate managed to finish filming the show with accommodations throughout production. She is discussing her MS diagnosis openly, with the same sense of humor she’s had since her Married… with Children days.
Applegate spoke to Variety with co-star Linda Cardellini and Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman on Nov. 21 about the challenges of completing the series. Here are some of Applegate’s gems as she lightened the mood. Dead to Me Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.
Christina Applegate won’t let MS take away her sense of humor
Applegate pointed out the irony of her recent Hollywood Walk of Fame star given that MS now makes it difficult to walk.
“‘Walk’ of Fame — with quotes,” Applegate told Variety. “Sorry, MS joke.”
That wasn’t her only MS joke. Asked what she learned about herself through filming Dead to Me Season 3, Applegate was blunt.
“That I have MS,” Applegate answered. “Just kidding — it never gets old!”
Even when she started to get emotional, Applegate undercut herself with humor.
“Sorry, I’m crying so much, but I have my period!” Applegate said. “Just kidding — I’ve been in menopause for four years, so I’m good!”
Christina Applegate survived a lot before ‘Dead to Me’ Season 3 too
MS is the latest challenge life has thrown at Applegate. She recounted several other difficulties she had to survive in the past.
“I have had some incredibly hard things happen to me in the midst of work,” Applegate said. “And work always made me push through it. I broke my foot while I was living my dream of being on Broadway. I had breast cancer while I was on my favorite show at the time, Samantha Who? A boyfriend also died that year.”
Applegate said surviving those events taught her not to deny the challenges MS presents.
Having the biggest one happen to me during this, I have to honor help. I have to feel the pain that I think I’ve always wanted to feel for all these other things, that I wasn’t allowed to because I wasn’t given an amazing space to do so. I had pushed everything down for so long. Through these characters — getting a chance to not have to be on all the f***ing time, be funny or get to the f***ing punch line; being able to play these characters that are so broken, that feel so deeply and so painfully — it really taught me: Christina, you’ve got to be able to honor that in yourself sometimes.
Christina Applegate, interview with Variety, 11/21/22
Christina Applegate gets serious about MS
Despite her characteristic sense of humor, Applegate doesn’t deny the gravity of MS. She also discusses the real circumstances she endures.
“There is no processing the fact that you have a lifelong degenerative disease,” Applegate said. “Maybe other people could have gone into acceptance. I’m just a year in, so I’m still in that mourning process. But if I didn’t have these two ladies, especially, I don’t know what I would have done.”
