Christina Applegate Makes Instagram Debut Amid MS Battle
Christina Applegate is sharing an unfiltered look at her private life.
The Dead to Me alum launched her new social media profile as a new way to engage with her friends and fans, though she admitted the move left her somewhat in disbelief.
“If you told me a year ago that I’d be on Instagram, I would have said, F--k off!” she wrote in an Oct. 16 post on the platform. “But here I am, so I’m going to do it my way. Real, raw, honest.”
Alongside the message, the 53-year-old—who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021—shared her “favorite picture of [herself] lately,” a moody black-and-white photo in which she wore a white T-shirt and jeans while gazing into the camera lens.
“It was taken by my lifelong friend @kevingrackle,” she continued, “in my backyard with the chimes that remind me of my mother and a moon necklace from a dear witchy friend. -C”
The actress—who is mom to Sadie Grace LeNoble, 14, with husband Martyn LeNoble—received a warm welcome from several celebrity pals including Minka Kelly, who commented, “Happy to see you here.”
Likewise, Kaitlyn Bristowe offered an enthusiastic “Hell yes,” while Christina’s MeSsy podcast co-host Jamie Lynn Sigler wrote, “Look at this!”
Shortly thereafter, the Emmy winner shared a heartfelt video message expressing gratitude for the support she’d received from her new followers.
“I’m not really a selfie person so pardon me,” she said in a post on her Instagram Stories Oct. 17. “Thank you so much for coming onto the Instagram with me. I’ve seen your comments. Thank you so much for the love that you are showing me. I love all of you guys so much and I appreciate you.”
Christina also teased her upcoming memoir set for release in March, promising an unflinching look at her ups and downs.
“I’m excited to share You With the Sad Eyes with everyone because it’s my life—the good, the bad, the ugly and the in-between,” she concluded. “Peace and blessings.”
For more on Christina’s battle with MS, keep reading.
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."
"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."
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."
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."
Joined by her daughter Sadie Grace LeNoble, Christina had a simple message for multiple sclerosis while attending the 2023 SAG Awards: "F U MS."
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."
"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."
"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.
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!'"
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."
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."
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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