Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate on living with MS, and the night a room stood up

Speaking to Robin Roberts at length for the first time about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, Christina Applegate did not soften it. She said she lives kind of in hell, and that she is not out much, so even doing the interview was difficult for her system. She talked about presenting at the Emmys, and the standing ovation that met her. She said she more or less blacked out — people told her afterwards she had been funny and she had no memory of what she said or did, because she got so overwhelmed she no longer knew what was happening. She said she felt beloved, and that it was a beautiful thing. Her humour was intact: she told the room they were shaming her with her disability by standing up, and then added that the audience had stood for everybody. She appeared alongside a friend who has lived with MS for far longer than she has, and the two of them, at different stages of the same disease, support each other. Nothing here is medical advice.

• Multiple sclerosis