That day I went barefoot because it was too uncomfortable to wear shoes. It’s a good job I don’t care about germs, though I was a bit worried about stepping on a used needle or something.
Hollywood has seen better times.
The star they gave me is barely a stone’s throw from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, right outside the Marshalls on Hollywood and North Orange. That location meant so much to me, to be so central and in the thick of it. I hated how I looked that day, how much this illness had taken from me, but this was my Oscar, after all. It was time to step out in public.
Then something magical happened: a steady, heady stream of my dearest friends went up to the podium and said incredibly lovely things, and by the end of the ceremony, everyone, including me, was crying—even the guy who has to go to all of them because he’s the CEO of the whole thing. He said, “I’ve been to a number of these star ceremonies, and as I sit here and listen to all these tributes, you are by far one of the most beloved recipients of a star that I’ve ever witnessed.”
Damn.
Wouldn’t you know it: I’m a survivor yet again.
There’s a video of me when they revealed the actual star that day—they had brought me a chair to sit in because… MS—and you can see my feet swinging back and forth like some excited five-and-a-half-year-old in line to seeStar Wars. This is magic, this is magic, this is magic…
Since then, I’ve sometimes gone down to visit my star in front of Marshalls—say if I have friends in town and they want to see it. I put my mask on and wear the clothes I probably slept in, and we all hang out by the star, just for fun. One time I was sitting by my star, and to make my friends laugh, when tourists would come by and read my name, from behind my mask I’d say, “Oh, it’s really sad… shedied.”
For a year or more, people saw only this weird version of me created by those steroid infusions. For all the joy of finally getting my star, it was still humiliating and horrible and devastating to be seen this way. Not just because I was bigger—that was one thing—but because the girl who had control all her life no longer had that control.
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.Once people stared at my boobs; then they stared at my broken foot. 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.
“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.” When I walked out onstage to do Jimmy Kimmel’s show three years after my diagnosis, I was touched when Jimmy said, “For people, it’s a little bit shocking. You come out with a cane and people love you and are concerned about you.” As I told him, this was my now, my normal.
If anyone asks me how I am these days, my answer is always thesame: “I’m living the dream, just livingallthe dreams.” I use that line because I’ve found that it curtails people’s probing questions.
There was none of me left in that body. The person I’d always been went away and I had to discover who that new person was overnight.
Sometimes the weight bothered me more than the disease. I promised you full honesty, didn’t I? I suppose that’s the curse of being a woman. Refer back to “mind sticker”; not much has changed.
I didn’t look in the mirror for a year.
Then I was put on a clear-liquid diet because of my stomach issues, and all of a sudden, everything just dropped off of me. Within seven months, all of it was gone, and I was down by fifty pounds or more. These days, my legs are tinier than they’ve ever been.
The illness has given me serious stomach issues. As I write this, there are tamales downstairs that are the best tamales you could ever have—I want to eat five of them right now, I’m so hungry—but I know if I do, I’ll probably end up in the ER again, as I have so many times recently. So once again, the good is followed by the bad: I’ve managed to create a much healthier place when it comes to my relationship with food, only to get out of the shower and see legs that are scary-looking. I have no muscles—just sticks. It’s dangerous to be walking around with zero muscles on my body: it means my bones aren’t protected if I fall, and it scares me.
But there’s still that little voice in my head saying, “You’re really skinny. You have the legs you always wanted. Good for you.” This is the sickness.
But she’s not going to win.
For the longest time, Sadie didn’t want to talk about my illness. Even these days, if it comes up, she says, “It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. It has devastated her life.
When she was younger, we had a little pre-bed routine: she’d eat, then we’d dance, then it was bath time, and then I’d read to her. We danced every single night. We called it Dance Party. We’d dance to “I Know What Boys Like” by the Waitresses or “Back in the U.S.S.R.” by that guy I kissed that one time.
Sadie has always had a penchant for good music. When she was only five years old, I was in New Orleans shootingBad Moms,and we went down to Bourbon Street to take in the scene. That day we came upon a band busking—bluegrass, delta, jazzy, bluesy stuff, with the washboard and everything—and Sadie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The next thing we knew, she was in the middle of the street, dancing, with her crazy hair that she never wanted brushed. She was really feeling it, so much so that a small crowd formed to watch her. One of the shopkeepers came out with a coffee can and the crowd started putting money in it. She made about thirty dollars, which she then gave to the band.
I fear the Applegate has not fallen far from the tree.
I was a super shy girl—I could never have done what Sadie did that day in New Orleans. But then my mom would remind me that I was on tour with CSNY for years, because of Stephen Stills, and then later with Manassas, because Joe Lala played with them. With Manassas, when they sang “Find the Cost of Freedom,” someone in the band would hoist me, then still a baby, like Simba in front of the audiences.
One time we were at a CSN show, and Ringo Starr was there backstage. He asked my mom if he could hold me. But Stephen Stills was my guy, so I punched Ringo a few times and said, “No! I want my Uncle Stephen! I want my Uncle Stephen!”
“Does she not know I’m a fucking Beatle?” Starr reportedly said.
But what I really remember about being on the road was Andy Gibb. Joe Lala played with him, and I was a bit older than in my Simba days, and I can still see the crazy crowds and Andy Gibb taking his shirt off. My babysitter once said, “Christina, why don’t you tell Andy what your favorite part of the show is?”
“When you take your shirt off!” I said.
He just laughed in my face. And even as a little girl I knew he didn’t love me, didn’t want to marry me.
