‘The View’ Hosts Defend Christina Applegate After Misdiagnosis Reveal

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SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 12: Christina Applegate attends the 25th Annual Critics' Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on January 12, 2020 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)

The hosts of “The View” came to Christina Applegate’s defense after the ’90s icon revealed she was misdiagnosed with MS.

“I’m back at square one – that I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Applegate said during a recent episode of her “MeSsy” podcast. “[The doctor] came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations – you don’t have MS.’ I was not happy at all.”

Applegate’s Misdiagnosis

Applegate went on to explain that her misdiagnosis only led to more questions.

“You don’t get misdiagnosed, and all of a sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better, Jamie. If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways,” she explained. “I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office. I can’t walk from the car to the room. I’m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, ‘You don’t have MS.’ Nothing magical happened.”

The “Married…With Children” star was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis five years ago. The diagnosis led her to retire from acting. In the years since, she has become an advocate for the incurable disease.

“It’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down. It’s this weird feeling of like I became this, you and I, the poster children for MS. All that I did, everything that I was doing, I had a [expletive] reason as to why my day sucked every day,” she continued. “And now I don’t have a reason. It’s very unnerving and it’s really confusing for me.”

‘The View’ Hosts Show Support

After Applegate received backlash from Megyn Kelly, who accused the former actress of “wanting to lean into [her] health problems.”

Whoopi Goldberg was the first to call out Kelly, asking, “Are you crazy?”

Maybe you missed it when a doctor from Cedar’s Sinai Medical Center joined Christina and Jamie Lynn [Sigler] noting that a misdiagnosis of this particular disease are common because there isn’t a single test that determines someone has MS. Just a list of criteria.”

She continued, “You think Christina wanted to have MS so she could, you know, have a good time?”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin added that just because Applegate’s diagnosis is not MS, does not mean she is healthy.

“Now it’s even scarier,” she continued. “Now she is at square one, trying to figure out what is wrong with her.”

Sara Haines added, “Who ~wants~ to be the face of MS? The reason she’s crying is because it’s a debilitating, degenerative neurological disease, and she’s hurting.”

Ana Navarro — whose husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s — shared her first-hand experience dealing with neurological diseases.

“Neurological diseases are incredibly difficult to diagnose and there are symptoms that mimic other symptoms and there are a lot of different diseases within those families,” she explained. “I will tell you, for me, it’s been very helpful to see people like Michael J. Fox talking about Parkinson’s, to see Carly Simon come out and talk about her Parkinson’s disease.”

She continued, “The thing with these neurological diseases that is just so difficult to navigate is the uncertainty you don’t know how they’re going to respond to medication or if they will…So when you see people that have big platforms talking about these diseases, it helps because you feel that you’re not alone and you have a sense of community.”