Christina Applegate is ‘pretty convinced’ ‘Dead to Me’ will be her last acting gig amid MS

Dead to Me” character Jen Harding might be Christina Applegate’s most trying acting role to date and her last.

The actress, 50, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis while filming the third and final season of the comedy (streaming Thursday on Netflix). It was as “hard as you would possibly think it would be,” she told Variety in an interview published last Wednesday.

“I got diagnosed while we were working,” Applegate recalled. “I had to call everybody and be like, ‘I have multiple sclerosis, guys.’ … And then it was about kind of learning — all of us learning — what I was going to be capable of doing.”

In a revealing New York Times profile published Nov. 1, the actress shared that she “put on 40 pounds” and couldn’t “walk without a cane” as a result of the pain from MS.

With MS, the body’s immune system begins attacking the central nervous system, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, triggering various neurological symptoms.

Applegate rehashed the difficulty she had filming “Dead to Me” to Variety. When asked if the show would be her last major role, she said, “I’m pretty convinced that this was it.”

The actress hasn’t made any final decision on her acting career yet, telling Variety, “I’m just a newbie to all of this. I’m trying to figure it out — and I’m also in mourning for the person that I was.”

“I have to find a place that’s as loving as my set was, where they won’t think I’m a diva by saying, ‘Hey, I can only work five hours,’ ” she added.

Applegate still has plans in the entertainment industry with an animated reboot of “Married …With Children,” where she’d reprise her role as Kelly Bundy. The actress also hopes to continue producing. “I’ve got a lot of ideas in my mind, and I just need to get them executed,” she said.

“Dead to Me” Season 3 is the first time people have seen Applegate onscreen since her MS diagnosis. To cap it off, her pandemic-delayed Hollywood Walk of Fame star unveiling on Monday will be the “first time as a disabled person” that people will see her. “It’s very difficult,” she told Variety.

“For me, two years ago would have been so much better!” she said. “But maybe this time it’s more poignant. I don’t know.”

Applegate went public with her MS diagnosis in August 2021, which she told her Twitter followers she’d received “a few months” earlier. “It’s been a strange journey,” Applegate wrote at the time. “But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition.”

Contributing: Erin Jensen and Hannah Yasharoff

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