Christina Applegate has revealed the emotional toll her battle with multiple sclerosis has had on her teenage daughter Sadie.
Applegate, 53, was diagnosed with the degenerative illness in 2021, and the damage the illness has inflicted has also extended to her daughter, 14, who struggles to see her mother in pain.
On the latest episode of her podcast, Applegate said her health challenges have ‘broken’ her daughter.
‘In my situation, Sadie only knew me as healthy, and a runner, and a Pelotoner and a dancer, and she only knew that,’ she told Jamie Lynn Sigler on their podcast MeSsy. ‘So then when this came about, 2021, she was like stoic about it.’
‘And now, I see her look at me when I’m in bed and can’t quite move, or I wanna go say goodnight to her in her room, but I can’t quite get down the hallway for whatever reason that my legs aren’t working that day. Right now I can barely get to bathroom, it’s the worst, but that’s neither here nor there.’ she said. ‘It’s broken her.
‘She didn’t know this. It was like losing the mom she had to this f**king thing. And the more she’s gotten older now, I think the more it’s hurting her.’
Christina Applegate has revealed the emotional toll her battle with multiple sclerosis has had on her teenage daughter Sadie; pictured 2023
‘Also I was diagnosed in 2021 so we had just gone through COVID and no school and all this stuff and now mommy can’t do all the things that she used to be able to do and I see it in her eyes. I see it.’
But Christina was happy to share just how helpful her daughter is when they’re out and about: ‘But you know what’s really beautiful? When we’re out, she knows I’m having such a hard time because I have such anxiety about being out. And she’s always got my arm.
‘She’s always trying to help me through and help me with my cane and and all this stuff. At home, she’s like, “Can you please go down and make my food cause you’re the only one who can make it.”
‘She’s like, “You’re going down all the steps.” And I’m like, “Sadie, I can’t make it down the f**king steps.” But I do it. I do it because I know that it’s like she’s like checking in to make sure, “Can she still take care of me?”‘
Podcast co-host Jamie, who received her MS diagnosis at age 20, said her 11-year-old son Beau also recently got emotional over her health ailment.
They finished watching Forrest Gump movie together when her Beau ‘buried his head in my chest and just started sobbing.’
‘And I was like, “Oh, buddy. What’s the matter?” And he was like, “I hate how much you suffer. I hate watching you be sick. I don’t like that this is happening to you.” And I never thought about that,’ she said.
‘I prided myself that Beau and I had a very open relationship, and I feel like I’ve set the stage for him to feel like if he ever wanted to express himself or talk about anything with me.
Watching her mother’s health challenges has ‘broken’ Sadie, Christina said; the duo pictured 2024
‘I guess I just took for granted that he’s only known me with MS, so that he’s just kind of accepted that this is my life. And I didn’t think about it being that hard for him, the uncertainty of it, and the obvious comparisons that he now has of having a mother with a disability versus one that doesn’t. And it was eye-opening and heartbreaking.’
Christina previously revealed how her illness has impacted her daughter Sadie.
She recently shared she and Sadie ‘got into a big thing the other day, and – sorry Sadie, but it has to be said – she says: “I miss who you were before you got sick.”‘
She made the disclosure while discussing her health problems during a July appearance on Kelly Ripa‘s podcast Let’s Talk Off-Camera.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also suffers from MS, revealed how her son Beau recently became emotional over her health woes; pictured 2024
‘And that just like – it’s like a knife to heart because I miss who I was before I got sick too, very much so. Everyday of my life, it’s such a loss,’ Christina confessed.
The Married… with Children star said that she gets ‘up in the morning’ for Sadie’s sake, adding: ‘She’s the reason I’m still here and trying.’
Jamie-Lynn and Christina were making a joint appearance on Kelly Ripa’s podcast when the subject of Sadie’s shattering comment arose.
Christina revealed last year that Sadie was diagnosed with a neurological condition called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
POTS causes the patient’s heart rate to quicken when sitting or standing up, in a phenomenon heightened by hot weather.
‘When I stand up, I get really, really dizzy and my legs get really weak, and I feel like I’m going to pass out,’ Sadie explained on her mother’s podcast.
Christina shares her daughter with her second and current husband Martyn LeNoble, the Dutch bassist for the rock band Porno For Pyros.
She announced last year that she is writing a memoir, and it has since emerged the book is scheduled for publication by Little, Brown and Company next March.
Before she developed multiple sclerosis, Christina’s health problems included a 2008 diagnosis with breast cancer, for which she underwent a double mastectomy, and a struggle with anorexia during the early years of her stardom.
She made the disclosure while discussing her health problems during an appearance on Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off-Camera; pictured January 2023
Last year, amid her harrowing experience with multiple sclerosis, Christina revealed the ‘things I want to do with the days I have left in life.’
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, she shared: ‘I want to work with Shirley MacLaine And do shots with Cher! And yes my days are so big. Just saying.’
Christina at one point raised concerns among her fans by remarking on her podcast: ‘I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.’
As her fans expressed their fears for her on social media, she issued a clarification saying that she finds it ‘healing’ to be frank about her emotional turmoil.
She acknowledged that she harbors ‘dark thoughts’ but argued: ”By making such a big deal about it you’re making other people think: “Oh, s***, I can’t talk about this.” And that is not okay with me. I think it’s important to be able to say these things.’
