Christina Applegate Shares Her Top Bucket List Items Amid Battle With Multiple Sclerosis

Christina Applegate has lots more to achieve. 

After all, the Married…With Children star—who has been candid about her ongoing battle with multiple sclerosis since her 2021 diagnosis—revealed the two big moments in her life that she still hopes to accomplish. 

“There are things I want to do with the days I have left in life,” Christina wrote in a July 3 post on X, formerly Twitter. “I want to work with Shirley MacLaine. And do shots with Cher! And yes my days are so big. Just saying.”

While drinking with Cher seems to be a new addition to her bucket list, working with Shirley has been on Christina’s mind for a while. 

“I wish I could work with Shirley MacLaine,” she wrote in a post on X last month. “That’s all. Woke up and that dream I have had for my whole life, washed over me. And I wept for a minute.  And I’m sure I will again. Oh and Shirley, I don’t have your number anymore so.” 

And the 52-year-old’s goal of sharing the screen with Steel Magnolias legend is not so far-fetched. After all, when Shirley celebrated her 90th birthday in April, she noted to People that she was most grateful that she can “keep working.”

Meanwhile, Christina’s desire to get back to work is just one way she’s continuing to persevere through her health journey. The Anchorman star—who shares daughter Sadie with husband Martyn LeNoble—has shared how hard it has been for her to participate in public engagements amid her multiple sclerosis battle, recently detailing the difficulties of attending the Emmys in January. 

"I did the thing, you know, the television thing,” she recalled in a June episode of her MeSsy podcast. “That was like the hardest day of my life. Started at 11 o'clock in the morning and didn't get home until 9:30. I think I slept for two days straight after that. I couldn't even function.”

Christina later emphasized that some days with her chronic nerve condition are better than others, but working on her podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler as well is one way she finds solace and shares her story with fans. 

“When we hold in feelings of despair we give those feelings incredible power,” she noted on X of the support she has received. “By just sharing we free ourselves. Never feel alone. There is always an ear somewhere. Love you.”

Keep reading to see more updates on Christina’s MS journey. 

Christina Applegate shared she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021.

"Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS," she shared on her social media channels that August. "It's been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It's been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a--hole blocks it."

"Oh, by the way, I have a disease," she joked during her November 2022 Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony, her first public appearance since her MS diagnosis. "Did you not notice? I'm not even wearing shoes."

Christina believes her MS journey actually began "six or seven years" before her 2021 diagnosis.

"I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we'd be shooting and my leg would buckle," Christina explained during a March 2024 interview on Good Morning America. "I really just put it off as being tired, or I'm dehydrated, or it's the weather. Then nothing would happen for months, and I didn't pay attention."

By the time she was shooting the Netflix series' third and final season, the actress said she was "being brought to set in a wheelchair."

"I couldn't move that far," she recalled, "so I had to tell everybody because I needed help."

The Dead to Me star captioned this photo of her cane collection amid her battle with MS: "Walking sticks are now part of my new normal."

Joined by her daughter Sadie Grace LeNoble, Christina had a simple message for multiple sclerosis while attending the 2023 SAG Awards: "F U MS."

After a receiving standing ovation at the 2023 Emmys, the Married...With Children alum quipped, "You're totally shaming me with disability by standing up."

"I make these jokes because if I don't, I'll suffocate," Christina shared on a March 2024 episode on Armchair Expert, explaining why she often pokes fun at her condition. "I'll be done."

"I have 30 lesions on my brain," she said on the same podcast. "My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot."

Legions are caused by the immune system attacking the myelin sheath around nerves, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.

Christina hasn’t held back when it comes to sharing her journey. 

"It sucks," the Anchorman actress told late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel of her daily struggles with MS. "I'm not going to lie. I think anyone who has MS isn't going to be like, 'This is the best thing that ever happened to me!'"

When talking about her day-to-day life with the disease, Christina told Good Morning America in March 2024, "I live kind of in hell."

"But I might get to a place where I function a little bit better," she added. "Right now, I'm isolating, and that's kind of how I'm dealing with it—by not going anywhere because I don't want to do it. It's hard." 

Christina credited her Sweetest Thing costar Selma Blair—who was diagnosed with MS in 2018—for urging her to get tested for the disease.

"She said, 'You need to get checked for MS,'" Christina recalled during her GMA interview. "If not for her, it could've been way worse."

Christina confirmed that Dead to Me will likely be her last onscreen credit, telling Vanity Fair in May 2023, "I can’t even imagine going to set right now."

"I’m probably not going to work on-camera again, but I'm so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life," she said of costar Linda Cardellini, "if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.

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