Christina Applegate Gets Candid About Fighting An Eating Disorder At The Peak Of Her Career

Publish date: 2024-10-29

Highlights

Christina Applegate bravely shared how she battled anorexia while on "Married... with Children," due in part to pressure from her competitive mother.
The actress struggled with severe eating habits, only eating five almonds a day, leading to intervention from show producers.
Despite overcoming anorexia and cancer, Christina Applegate faces the heartbreak of multiple sclerosis with grace and courage.

Christina Applegate hasn't had it easy in life despite her incredibly successful career, especially when it comes to her health. She's had to battle, and continues to battle, several illnesses and conditions, and recently, she opened up about her struggle with something that affects millions of young women all over the world.

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The Dead to Me star recently opened up about the years she struggled with an eating disorder, how her mother contributed to it, and how the Married... with Children crew had to intervene. She was honest in her talk with her close friend Jamie-Lynn Sigler, with whom she hosts a podcast, and shared the truth about how bad it really got.

Christina Applegate Opens Up About Struggle With Anorexia

While Christina Applegate was doing Married... with Children, one of the most successful shows of her career, she was secretly struggling with anorexia. She spoke candidly about it in an episode of her and Jamie-Lynn Sigler's "MeSsy" podcast, saying "I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years," which she described as "torture."

She was just 15 years old when she joined the Married... with Children cast, and she said that part of the reason she developed an eating disorder was her mother, who was unhealthily invested in her career and believed she needed to be extremely thin to be successful, so she put her on Weight Watchers to control her diet.

"She was always competitive," the actress said of her mother. "If I got down to 110 [pounds], she'd be like, 'How’d you do it?' And the reason was, I had an eating disorder."

Christina Applegate's struggle with anorexia got to the point where she would only eat "five almonds in a day" and "would cry and I wouldn’t want to leave the house," if she ended up eating one more.

The producers of the show eventually noticed her weight-loss had gotten out of control and became scared for her, especially because she "wanted [her] bones to be sticking out, so I didn’t eat." She said they eventually staged some kind of intervention. "It was very scary to everyone on set because they were like, 'Christina never eats.' They talked to me about it."

Christina Applegate's Battle With MS

While her struggles with anorexia might be behind her, Christina Applegate is now facing another heartbreaking illness, and she's doing it incredibly gracefully.

In 2021, she shared with the world that she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and despite having overcome an eating disorder and a cancer diagnosis, as well as several complex surgeries, she said this disease is the worst thing that ever happened to her.

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Her and Jamie-Lynn Sigler's podcast, "MeSsy", is a coping mechanism for her. The two actresses are both dealing with the same illness, and are supporting each other through the journey. In their podcast, they deal with the complicated feelings around their diagnosis with dark humor and love, and though it is bittersweet, it's comforting for fans to know they're not alone.