Christina Applegate Used Adult Diapers After Contracting Sapovirus From A Tainted Salad

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Christina Applegate is opening up about the reality of living with many health conditions.

During this week's episode of her podcast MeSsy, the 52-year-old Dead to Me alum—who shared her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021—detailed a bout of long COVID and sapovirus, which left her "pissing out of [her] ass for a few days." Sapovirus—a virus commonly transmitted through fecal-oral contact infection—can cause gastroenteritis, an intestinal infection. Gastroenteritis symptoms include diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea or vomiting, and sometimes fever, according to the Mayo Clinic.

"I was so dizzy," Christina recalled. "I was so sick. I couldn't eat, I couldn't [do] anything."

One night, she woke up "at three o'clock in the morning in a pool of sh*t." She added that she's now wearing adult diapers due to MS symptoms. (The condition makes it difficult for people to control their bladders, which can result in accidents, Christina and cohost Jamie-Lynn Sigler told People in March.)

"Having MS at three o'clock in the morning and trying to change your sheets, it's not fun," Christina continued. "But this brings me to my next point, which we can talk about: I'm wearing diapers."

Christina's revelations have raised a lot of questions about her health and how she's doing right now. Here’s everything the actress has shared about her MS so far.

She revealed her MS diagnosis in 2021.

Christina shared her diagnosis on X (formerly Twitter) with a post on August 10, 2021.

“Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey,” she wrote. “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 asshole blocks it.”

At the time, she didn't say much more about the diagnosis, but later began to share more about her health journey.

She had been experiencing physical symptoms that led her to see a doctor.

In November 2022, Christina told The New York Times that she'd started noticing symptoms while filming the third season of Dead to Me. She felt off-balance while shooting a dancing scene, and then noticed that her tennis game was off.

Christina says she missed early warning signs.

Despite her symptoms, Christina told The New York Times that she didn’t connect her symptoms with anything more sinister at the time. “I wish I had paid attention. But who was I to know?” she said.

Christina also told the outlet that she developed numbness and tingling in her extremities that got worse as time went on, so she eventually decided to see a doctor. Filming for Dead to Me was temporarily put on pause while she was trying to sort out her health issues.

“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,’” she said. “And there is no better. But it was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So I needed that time.”

Christina also said that she’s “never going to accept” her diagnosis, adding, “I’m pissed.”

She unveiled her Hollywood Star while barefoot.

Shortly after sharing this health update, Christina received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and went to the ceremony barefoot. She later went on X to explain why she didn’t wear shoes.

“Barefoot. For some with MS the feeling of shoes may hurt or make us feel off balance. So today I was me. Barefoot,” she wrote next to a photo of her feet on her star.

“Oh, by the way, I have a disease,” she said, jokingly, during her speech at the big event, per People. “Did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes. Anywho, you’re supposed to laugh at that.”

Her daughter has been a big source of strength.

During her Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony speech, Christina began to cry as she thanked her daughter for all of her love and support during her difficult health journey.

“The most important person in this world is my daughter,” she said, per Variety. “You are so much more than even you know. You are so beautiful and kind and smart and interesting. I’m blessed every day that I get to wake up and take you to school…thank you for standing by me through all of this.”

Christina got candid about her physical changes post-diagnosis.

These days, the actor can't get around without the help of a cane.

“I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that," she told The New York Times.

And all these physical struggles made it hard for her to finish filming Dead to Me because she couldn't work as long in heat, had a hard time walking down stairs, and had to use a wheelchair to get to set, per The New York Times. Still, she persisted.

Christina gave another health update in 2023.

In May of 2023, Christina revealed to Vanity Fair that it’s been hard for her to keep acting after her diagnosis. In fact, she shared that Dead to Me might be her last time on camera.

“With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day,” she said. “You just have little sh*t days.” Christina added that it can be “frightening” to do simple things like take a shower.

“You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle,” she said. “Especially because I have a glass shower. It’s frightening to me to get in there. There are just certain things that people take for granted in their lives that I took for granted. Going down the stairs, carrying things—you can’t do that anymore.”

Since her condition makes her more susceptible to infections, she also prefers to avoid crowds.

She presented at the Emmys and talked about her diagnosis.

Christina was both a presenter and a nominee at the 2024 Emmy Awards on January 16, and as she walked on stage with the help of a cane and fellow actor Anthony Anderson, she received a standing ovation from the audience.

During her speech, Christina referenced her diagnosis a few times and, despite getting emotional, lightened the room with a joke about her MS. “You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up,” she joked. “It’s fine.”

She tried to continue her speech by talking about her career, but as people kept clapping and cheering, she joked, “We don't have to applaud every time I do something."

In March, Christina shared that it was difficult to process the experience. “I actually kinda blacked out,” she said during an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. “People said, ‘Oh, you were so funny,’ and I'm like, ‘I don't even know what I said. I don't know what I was doing. I got so freaked out that I didn't even know what was happening anymore.’”

But, despite being nervous, Christina said that she “felt really beloved, and it was really a beautiful thing.”

She started a podcast about her experience with MS.

In March, Christina also launched a new podcast called MeSsy with her friend (and Sopranos star) Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS. According to the podcast description, the series will feature the stars "as they self-reflect, learn, laugh, and grow through their own raw and often-times hilarious conversations with each other, friends, co-stars, and the people that keep them going through the messiness of life." The series will also feature conversations with former co-stars like Martin Short and Edie Falco.

Christina told People that she first connected with Jamie-Lynn—who has been living with the disease for two decades—on the suggestion of mutual friend Lance Bass. Once the two touched base, they "haven't stopped talking since," Christina shared.

"I wanted to give her tools and things that I've learned that have helped me," Jamie-Lynn, 42, told the outlet.

"We would talk on the phone for two hours, and we'd be laughing and crying and we were like, 'This is helping us. Let's record this. Let's do it,'" Christina added.

And, even though both hosts have MS, the podcast isn’t only about their chronic disease, according to Jamie-Lynn. “It's not about the specific experience we're having,” she said. “It's us facing something hard and it's about figuring out how to still push through.”

She’s currently battling 30 lesions on her brain.

Later that month, Christina revealed that she currently has 30 lesions on her brain (a symptom of MS, per Healthline). A lesion is an area of damage that happen when the immune system attacks the myelin sheath around nerves, Cedars-Sinai explains.

“My biggest one is behind my right eye, so my right eye hurts a lot,” Christina said on an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast. She also shared that sometimes “my hand starts to go weird and then I'll get a seizure-y feeling, sometimes in my brain.”

Christina was honest about the experience, telling hosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, “It sucks. I hate it so much. I'm so mad about it.” She added that being diagnosed with MS has been “the worst thing that's happened to me in my entire life.”

During the interview, Christina, also touched on her experience battling breast cancer in 2008, saying that she wished she would have been more honest in public about what she experienced at the time. “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 f—ed up. What was I thinking?” she said.

During her first interview after her cancer diagnosis, Christina added that she was “lying my ass off about how I felt.” Afterward, she says she “literally fell into the wall” and started sobbing.

“Everything I was saying was a freaking lie," she said. "It was me trying to convince myself of something, and I think that did no service to anyone."

Christina shared that experience encouraged her to be more open about what she’s now going through with MS, adding that she's learning to laugh about her health journey. “I make these jokes because if I don't, I'll suffocate,” she said. “I'm not ready for the healing yet.”

She opened up about a MS relapse in April 2024.

During an April 2024 episode of her podcast MeSsy, Christina revealed that she'd been struggling with a "pretty bad" relapse. (Her publicist later told People that the episode was recorded months ago, and Christina is no longer going through a relapse.)

Her symptoms included "intense pain" in her legs, and "not being able to walk to the bathroom without feeling like I'm going to fall."

Due to her leg pain and poor circulation, Christina shared that she hadn't showered in three weeks at the time of recording. The symptoms were especially difficult for Christina after coming home from a vacation that felt like a "win."

“I need to buy stock in Cottonelle, because I haven't taken a shower in three weeks because I can't stand in my shower," she said. "There is no f*cking way I can stand in my shower."

“My legs have never been this bad,” she continued. “I don’t know what’s going on—like, no energy, legs are just done, can’t get circulation. I can’t get them to stop hurting.”

Christina shared that she'd also been struggling to get rest because the relapse affected one of her eyes.

“I haven't slept for 24 hours because my eye is doing something weird, where every time I close my eye to go to sleep, my right eye starts to shift,” she said.

The actress said that she's been struggling with depression, which was only exacerbated by the relapse. "Then you do all the wrong things, and you just lay in a dark room watching TV, wanting it all to go away. And that's kind of where I'm at," she said.

Additionally, Christina explained that MS has affected her parenting. Her daughter, Sadie, 12, is going through a “loss” of how Christina used to mother her, she said.

“Dancing with her every day. Picking her up from school every day. Working at her school, working in the library. Being present out of the house, out of my bed. She doesn't see those things anymore,” she said. “We're both learning as we're going along.”

She experienced long COVID and sapovirus at the same time.

During that same month, Christina shared that she got COVID-19 for the first time due to a close friend, who "dropped the ball and went to a bowling alley, and came home with the stuff."

Though she was hoping to heal quickly, the actress said the infection developed into long COVID, causing her heart to do "weird stuff where it speeds up, all of a sudden."

At the same time, Christina was diagnosed with sapovirus, which happens when "you ingest the fecal matter of someone else from your food," she said. "Someone else's poop went into my mouth and I ate it." She blames a tainted salad from one of her favorite takeout spots, which she had previously frequented for 15 years.

The sapovirus caused Christina to be "pissing out of [her] ass for a few days," as well as becoming dizzy and experiencing a lack of appetite. Ultimately, the Married... With Children star had to do a stool test to get diagnosed, which caused her to throw up.

"You poop into a receptacle and then you have to scoop your own poop into vials," she recalled. "And it was so gross I started vomiting while doing this. Anywho, [the test] came back [and] I had something called sapovirus."

The incident segued into a conversation about adult diapers, which Christina and Jamie have used due to MS symptoms. (The condition makes it difficult for people to control their bladders, which can result in accidents, the podcast hosts previously told People.)

Christina shared that adult diapers aren't "pretty" or "accessible," which Jamie agreed with.

"Adult diapers are a blush pink usually, and they usually have some sort of bow or floral design along the pelvic area," Jamie said. "To be honest—Christina and I have talked about this—putting on an adult diaper, you're not gonna feel hot. You're never gonna slip one on and be like, 'I'm ready for my day.' It's something you gotta wear because your body is malfunctioning."

Christina didn't clarify when she got sapovirus, but an Instagram post promoting the podcast added that parts of the episode were recorded in 2023.

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