Christina Applegate Reveals 'Touching' Moment With Jimmy Kimmel as Actress Appeared on Late Night Show With Cane Following MS Diagnosis

In her new memoir, Christina Applegate opens up about how Jimmy Kimmel treated her sensitively and with dignity during a rare talk show appearance three years after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

In You with the Sad Eyes, the actress, 54, shared how insecure she was after gaining weight and needing the assistance of a cane as the disease progressed, and Kimmel, 58, helped audiences see that it was her "new normal."

Applegate shared how audiences got to see her for the first time in several years during a 2024 Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance.

"When I walked out on stage to do Jimmy Kimmel’s show three years after my diagnosis, I was touched when he said, 'For people, it’s a little bit shocking. You come out with a cane, and people love you and are concerned about you,'" she writes about how he addressed Applegate's new reality with viewers.

She heartbreakingly adds, "As I told him, this was my now, my normal."

The recollection came after Applegate went into detail about how, after years of being a size zero, she was floored that once the MS hit, she transformed into a "f------ blob" after undergoing "15 hours of steroid infusion" and other medications that caused her weight to balloon.

She had been diagnosed with a chronic neurological disease in 2021, and the effects of the treatments were starting to show as she filmed the final season of her Netflix dark comedy Dead to Me.

The season's premiere coincided with Applegate finally getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in November 2022, where she was terrified about the public's reaction to her new physical appearance.

"When I was to receive my star, I didn’t even look like 'Christina Applegate' anymore. All the medications and ravages of the disease had loaned me entirely the wrong kind of facelift, she recalls in her book.

Applegate shared how "The day I got my star was about the first time anyone had seen me since my diagnosis, and I felt humiliated" about her appearance.

"I want to throw up when I think of the pictures that are out there of me. I look sad and embarrassed. Because all I can think is: everyone is staring," she continues.

Applegate noted how it was such a drastic change from how she's been viewed as a blonde bombshell ever since her breakout role as Kelly Bundy on Married...With Children.

"Once, people stared at my b----. But now I knew they were staring not only because I was disabled; they were staring because I was fat, forever an unacceptable fate for women in Hollywood," she laments.

"'Oh wow,' I could imagine everyone saying. 'Christina Applegate, of all people, is fat. Not to mention she’s got a cane. Not to mention she’s got a disease," the Anchorman star remembers thinking about her first major public appearance since the diagnosis.