Christina Applegate, the US actress best known for her roles in Anchorman and Dead To Me, has said she is living “kind of in hell” after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Applegate, 52, who found out she had the potentially debilitating auto-immune disease in 2021, told Good Morning America: “I live kind of in hell. I’m not out a lot, so this is a little difficult, just for my system.
“But of course, the support is wonderful, and I’m really grateful.”
Image: Christina Applegate walks the red carpet at the Emmy Awards. Pic: AP
The actress used her appearance on the ABC show to promote MeSsy, a newly-launched podcast she is making with fellow actress and Sopranos star, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, 42, who was diagnosed with MS when she was 20 years old.
The interview follows Applegate’s surprise appearance at January’s Emmy Awards, when she received a standing ovation after entering the stage using a cane.
She even made a joke about her condition, saying: “You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up, but it’s fine.”
But rather than feeling triumphant, she admitted she “kind of blacked out” in that moment.
She said: “People said, ‘Oh, you were so funny,’ and I’m like, I don’t even know what I said. I don’t know what I was doing. I got so freaked out that I didn’t even know what was happening anymore.”
But, she said, she “felt really beloved, and it was a beautiful thing”.
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Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance, the NHS says on its website.
A lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, people with the condition have a slightly reduced average life expectancy.
The immune system attacks the body’s nerve linings, producing unpredictable symptoms including pain, fatigue or even paralysis, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
It says more than 130,000 people in the UK have MS.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.