Christina Applegate Explains Why She’s Wearing Adult Diapers After Sapovirus Diagnosis

Christina Applegate is giving an honest look into her multiple sclerosis journey.

The Dead to Me actress recently revealed she contracted sapovirus—a virus commonly transmitted through fecal-oral contact—and, due to her ongoing battle with MS, has to wear adult diapers.

"I woke up at three o'clock in the morning in a pool of s--t," Christina explained on the April 23 episode of her MeSsy podcast. "I didn't know what happened, and having MS at three o'clock in the morning and trying to change your sheets, it's not fun. But this brings me to my next point, which we can talk about: I'm wearing diapers."

While the 52-year-old admitted to wearing adult diapers at times over the years, her recent experience with sapovirus—which she believes she contracted from take-out—has made the ordeal messier due to major diarrhea.

Although she knows life with the neurological disease can come with some crappy situations, she and Jamie-Lynn Sigler—who also has MS—also have "a bone to pick" with adult diapers. Christina noted that not only are they inaccessible for some with disabilities since they don't detach on the sides, but she's not a fan of their look either.

"Here's my problem: Why do they make them pretty for women?" the Anchorman actress said. "Like, 'Hey baby, you wanna get down and dirty in my diaper lingerie with my own urine?'"

And Jamie-Lynn couldn't agree more. "Putting on an adult diaper, you're not going to feel sexy," she said. "You're never going to slip one on and be like, 'I'm ready for my day.' It's something you've got to wear because your body is malfunctioning."

While the Sopranos alum has often felt uncomfortable about it, she shared how grateful she was to have this candid conversation with Christina.

"It's so liberating to have a conversation with you about this," Jamie-Lynn reflected. "This is something you do by yourself and it feels terrible when you're doing it. I've done that hundreds of times in my MS journey through the years when I've experienced a flair or when I was sick."

And Christina added, "There are people all over the world who have to wear a diaper and are embarrassed about it."

This isn't the first time Christina has opened up about her journey with multiple sclerosis. Keep reading to see how she's navigated the disease.

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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