Christina Applegate has told the multiple sclerosis community she is not going anywhere. 'I am still your warrior,' she said on Tuesday, 27 October on her podcast MeSsy, a week after telling listeners she does not have the disease she has spoken about for five years.
'I'm still going to speak out on your behalf forever and ever,' she said. 'I still feel like part of this community and no matter what I love you.' Applegate, best known for her roles in Married...with Children and Anchorman, announced her MS diagnosis in 2021 and became one of its most visible advocates, describing publicly what the illness had taken from her.
On 20 October, she said doctors had concluded the diagnosis was wrong, and her reaction was not relief. 'I was, like, not happy at all,' she said at the time. 'Everybody else was so happy.'
Christina Applegate tearfully announces she does not have MS and was 'misdiagnosed' for years https://t.co/5neJOEW2lj pic.twitter.com/n4ScxjXVsP
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) October 20, 2026
Why This Happens More Often Than People Think
The explanation she reached for was not her own, but from a neurologist the podcast had invited on the week before. Dr Marwa Kaisey, an associate professor in the neurology department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, told listeners that MS misdiagnoses are 'fairly common.'
'We don't have one single test for MS,' she said. 'It's not like we have something like a pregnancy test that says, "Yes. You have it." "No. You don't." It's a list of criteria.' Nearly 20% of people initially diagnosed with the disease turn out not to have it, she explained.
Applegate said she had been glad of the explanation, and careful about what she wanted it to do. 'A lot of people are going, "Oh snap, I should check this out,"' she said. 'But I never wanted to cause a hysteria in any way, shape or form.'
She Is Still Unwell, and Still Looking
The part that has been lost in the headlines is that nothing about her day has improved.
'I actually timed it today,' she said. 'It took me 10 minutes to be able to move off my pillow and get out of the bed and stand up. I don't know what's going on. This is what I am still living with.' She described her situation as 'living in no-man's land', and admitted her mind swings between hoping there is a pill that fixes it and fearing something 'really macabre'.
Her next appointment is with a rheumatologist. After that, she said, 'if that doesn't come with any kind of results, then we're going to go to a different specialist and then a different specialist.' The prospect of that queue is what overwhelms her. 'I think I just have to go, all right, one step at a time.'
The Podcast Is Carrying On
Her co-host moved quickly to settle the obvious question. Sopranos actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who has MS herself and kept the diagnosis private for about 15 years, started the show MeSsy with Applegate in March 2024. 'This is just about our lives and the messiness of life in general,' Sigler said. 'It was never meant to be solely MS focused.'
Sigler also made the case that the admission had been worth making. She told Applegate that being open about it had left a lot of people feeling seen. It pushed into view a conversation that was already out there without much attention: how hard a correct diagnosis can be to get and how easily autoimmune and neurological conditions are mistaken for one another.
What the Community Said Back
On Reddit, where the news was passed round again this week, the replies did not read as a community withdrawing its welcome. Several readers said the correction changed nothing about her standing.
One wrote that it took courage to come forward, that she had probably expected to be shamed for it, and that the community was lucky to have her. They added that one did not have to be struck by a disease to care about it. Others wrote about how long a correct answer can take to arrive, which is the part Applegate is still in.
One reader who said they have MS put the stakes of a diagnosis plainly. 'A diagnosis is like someone handing you a map, so you know what roads are available and the ways you might get there.'
Comment
by u/PrincessBananas85 from discussion
in Fauxmoi
Applegate has not been handed one yet. She has spent five years as a public face of an illness she does not have, and she has decided to keep the job.
