Christina Applegate Reveals She Was Misdiagnosed With Multiple Sclerosis
Actor Christina Applegate broke down in tears on her podcast 'MeSsy,' revealing that after more than five years she had been incorrectly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and now faces an uncertain medical road ahead.
On October 20, 2026, Emmy-winning actor Christina Applegate, 54, made a stunning announcement on her podcast MeSsy: a doctor had recently told her she did not have multiple sclerosis (MS), the neurological condition she believed she had since her public diagnosis in 2021. New diagnostic technology enabled the discovery, but rather than bringing relief, Applegate described feeling lost and devastated — saying she was 'back at square one' and 'not happy at all' about the news, as her debilitating symptoms had persisted or worsened regardless of the corrected label. She revealed she had spent months hospitalised this year and expressed guilt at having become a public face for an illness she now appears not to have. Her podcast co-host and longtime MS patient Jamie-Lynn Sigler was present, alongside neurologist Marwa Kaisey of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who noted that MS misdiagnoses are common because no single test definitively confirms the disease. Applegate, best known for Married...with Children, Dead to Me, and the Anchorman films, received a standing ovation at the 2024 Emmy Awards while using a cane. The story became one of the most widely read celebrity health stories of the week across NBC News, ABC News, Variety, and The Washington Post.
