Christina Applegate Wishes She Would’ve Been More Honest About Her Breast Cancer Experience

Christina Applegate is opening up about learning hard lessons when she had breast cancer in 2008.

The Dead to Me actress stopped by Dax Shephard’s Armchair Expert podcast where she discussed not being vulnerable and honest about what she was feeling after her diagnosis and double mastectomy.

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“I learned that lesson the hard way because, in 2008, when I had breast cancer at 36 years old, I went out, and I was the good girl talking about, ‘Oh, I love my new boobs that are all scarred and fucked up.’ What was I thinking?” she said.

She explained that her first interview after learning she had cancer was with Robin Roberts, and she lied the whole time about how she was feeling. Once it was over, she got up and “literally fell into the wall.”

“Everything I was saying was a freaking lie,” Applegate continued. “It was me trying to convince myself of something, and I think that did no service to anyone. Yes, I started a foundation right away. Yes, I did all the things that I had to do, and we raised millions of dollars for women to get MRIs who were at high risk. Yes, we did a good thing, but at the back of it, I was taking off my bra and crying every night. And I wish that I had said that.”

In addition to feeling like a little bit of a fraud, the Married … With Children star shared that she didn’t want women who were going through what she was going through to think they needed to be tougher or feel a different way about what they were experiencing.

“I want that woman who’s feeling like that to not be like, ‘Oh, Christina Applegate, she loves her boobies.’ I didn’t like my boobies. I still don’t like my boobies. It’s horrible. I don’t have nipples. That’s not something I talk about. I don’t have nipples. It’s weird.”

Applegate has taken the opposite approach when it comes to discussing her MS diagnosis and what it’s been like for her. She’s been candid about finishing Dead to Me after her diagnosis, what her acting future holds and how she likely had the nerve disease for six or seven years before being diagnosed.

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