Christina Applegate Celebrates 50th Birthday, Discusses Her Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis

Emmy Award-winning actress Christina Applegate celebrated her 50th birthday on Thanksgiving day and admitted it’s been a hard one following her recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

On Thursday she tweeted a message to her 1.4 million followers, saying, “Yup. I turned 50 today. And I have MS. It’s been a hard one.”

“Sending so much love to all of you this day,” Applegate continued. “Many are hurting today, and I am thinking of you. May we find that strength to lift our heads up. Mine currently is on my pillow. But I try.”

Late this summer, Applegate talked about her experience with MS on Twitter, which was a few months after she had been diagnosed.

“It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition,” Applegate wrote at the time. “It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it.”

Fans and other entertainers poured in their support for Applegate, including. Selma Blair, with whom she starred alongside Cameron Diaz in the 2002 romantic comedy The Sweetest Thing, PEOPLE reported.

“Loving you always. Always here. As are our kids. Beating us up with love,” Blair, 49, wrote, to which Applegate responded: “Love you sister. Our kids are so weird.”

Blair also has MS, which she revealed in 2018. She shared her journey with the disease in the discovery+ documentary Introducing, Selma Blair.

Applegate, who starred in Dead to Me with costar James Marsden received praise from him on Entertainment Tonight that it’s “really, really inspiring to see.”

“That is her character. It is just who she is. Nothing is going to keep her down and she is going to battle and fight through anything and I admire her as a person,” Marsden said in September. “Just as a compassionate, wonderful human being who is fun to work with but is also, in addition to that, anything that life will throw at her, she will figure out a way to not let it keep her down. And she is doing exactly that.”

Yup. I turned 50 today. And I have MS. It’s been a hard one. Sending so much love to all of you this day. Many are hurting today, and I am thinking of you. May we find that strength to lift our heads up. Mine currently is on my pillow. But I try

— christina applegate (@1capplegate) November 26, 2021