Christina Applegate Gets Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Christina Applegate got emotional as she thanked fans for their support in her first public appearance since revealing she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

Christina Applegate is an icon, there’s no doubt about it. The award-winning actress has starred in dozens of movies and TV shows since her breakout role as Kelly Bundy on Married… With Children, including Anchorman, Samantha Who?, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and, most recently, her hit Netflix series Dead to Me. Now, Applegate is getting the recognition she deserves with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and to make this moment even more touching, the emotional ceremony marked her first public appearance since she revealed last year that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

“This day means more to me than you could possibly imagine,” Applegate said in an emotional, tear-filled speech after walking the boulevard barefoot to accept her star. “I don’t say that I have friends, I have family. These people take care of me. They take care of me every day of my life and without them, I don’t know what I would do.”

Applegate specifically mentioned her 11-year-old daughter, Sadie Grace LeNoble, whom she called, “the most important person in this world.”

“You so much more than even you know. You are so beautiful and kind and loving and smart and interesting and I am blessed every day that I get to wake up and take you to your school,” she said in a part of her speech that was directed at Sadie. “You are my everything. Thank you for standing beside me through all of this.”

A moment of levity came when Applegate addressed her MS diagnosis head on, joking, “Oh by the way, I have a disease, did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes.”

In a tweet after the ceremony, she explained that she went barefoot because “For some with MS, the feeling of shoes may hurt or make us feel off balance.”

Many of Applegate’s co-stars, past and present, attended the ceremony to cheer her on.

Applegate revealed in August of 2021 that she had been diagnosed with MS, a progressive disease that attacks the central nervous system and can cause pain, difficulty speaking, loss of balance and coordination, and other symptoms. She recently opened up about how she insisted on filming the final season of Dead to Me, despite her illness.

“The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together,’” she said about filming just after her diagnosis. “I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.’”