When I Zoom with Christina Applegate, she’s in bed in her LA home.
Since her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis in 2021, bed is where the actor spends most of her time, she writes in her brutally honest memoir “You With the Sad Eyes.”
“When your physical situation deteriorates, and your life shrinks to the size of a California king, suddenly all the things you thought were important shift, too,” she writes. “I no longer care what I say or how I come across… I’ve become an honesty missile.”
It’s rare that a celebrity memoir can make you both tear up and chuckle, but that’s what happened to me with Applegate’s bare-all instant New York Times No.1 bestseller. (And you may tear up just watching her learn she hit No. 1.)
Shockingly candid, and full of her own dark humor and charming snark, her self shines through. She often shares her teenage journals verbatim.
Applegate, 54, also delivers a powerful reading of the audiobook — literally crying through some painful lines, chuckling or stifling laughs after others, narrating with such a natural cadence and funny inflections that it feels as if your friend sat you down to reveal the most intimate events of her life.
The Laurel Canyon native holds nothing back: sexual abuse, abusive relationships, body dysmorphia, anorexia, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, and life with MS — she lives at a constant pain of 8 out of 10 — even cracking jokes about having to wear a diaper.
Also, don’t call her Christina Applegate. “I am not Christina Applegate,” she writes. When she hears that name “I get spine tingles, and not in a good way.”
I asked about that.
“We’re all multi-faceted. But that thing that’s out there — I can’t believe I call myself a thing,” she tells me with a laugh. “That thing is not who I am at home. But is anybody? I don’t like hearing it. It’s weird. Because it’s associated with something else. It’s associated with a job.”
Her true name, she writes, is Kiki. (“Kiki is who I really am. She’s fierce, and free, and she doesn’t have MS or trauma.”)
When I ask about Kiki, she makes a face, almost regretful for sharing the name: “Now everyone’s gonna start calling me that, and that’s a real bummer. But it’s OK.”
As for the rest of the memoir, she has no regrets.
In our recent interview, Applegate — co-host of MeSsy podcast with “Sopranos” alum Jamie Lynn Sigler, who also has MS — was candid, funny, and generous with expletives. That is to say: herself.
So what sparked this book now?
About three years ago, an agent said, “Would you ever think of writing a book?” And all these memories [in journals] were literally and metaphorically locked in a box. They’ve haunted me my whole life. I thought it was time. It was once something that scared me. Now, what scares me most is trying to walk to the bathroom. I thought, why not?
But I’m interested: You’d told your friend to burn that box of your journals after you died. It’s interesting that you went from thinking, I never want anyone to read this, to: I want everyone to read this.
I wanted to be seen, also. The lies that I told myself and the world for so long — it’s good to just get [this truth] out and say: “This is what was lingering.” And you want people to be affected by it. I’m hoping there’s lots of dog-eared pages. That people go back and ruminate on parts. I don’t give any tools, but I give experiences. I hope it resonates.
Was it cathartic to write?
That’s a tough question because I don’t feel a weight has been lifted. But I do feel: Here I am. That’s cathartic. Here I am. End of story.
I had no idea that your mom’s ex-boyfriend, Stephen Stills, is like family to you. You grew up calling him “Uncle Dadu.”
He’s my uncle/godfather. His family is my family. People always asked, “What’s your relation to him?” We didn’t know what to say. So now we just say he’s my godfather.
What were the hardest parts to write?
The chapter “Orange Curtains” [about an attack from a physically abusive boyfriend]. I wanted to zoom through it. I was like [speaks fast] I don’t want to talk about it, but I have to talk about it, but I don’t want to talk about it. That night will forever be burned in my brain. With that person, there were many more nights like that. I just didn’t want to depress the crap out of everybody.
You also wrote about a female caregiver who forced you to perform oral sex on her when you were 5, which — my God, that must’ve been hard to write. You almost spit those lines onto the page.
I’ve told friends about it, and I don’t cry. But sh— . Writing them down? That stung.
You also took us back through your time on “Married With Children” and your eating disorder that snowballed there. What was it like reading those journals, hearing from that girl who wanted to live off water?
She’s always been here. It’s not like that’s gone. That lives here. That’s what I walk around with all the time. But to see the details in there [was emotional]. A huge portion of the book is verbatim from my journals. I developed my eating disorder [as a teenager], but I had body image issues since I was little.
You say “Married” would never get made today. The live audience catcalled you as a kid. How did that affect you?
Yeah, pretty gross. But you know what? It’s gonna sound really dumb: I knew people were doing it, and I thought, “I guess I’m doing my job.” Because I wanted [Kelly] to be that. I wanted you to have a certain idea about her, even though I played her as a virgin.
That might surprise fans.
I felt if I played her as anything but, there’d be an element of salaciousness that wouldn’t work. Having that innocence kept her likable.
“Married” was basically your whole adolescence. How else did it shape you?
My work ethic, and [my idea of] what comedy was. I didn’t know a lick about that. I call it vaudeville. To do a show like that is vaudevillian. And it gave me a sense of family that I really needed then.
It sounds like you’re still close to the cast.
I talk to Ed O’Neill, like, once a week.
Your favorite role was “Dead to Me."
Absolutely. It was what I’d been wishing for my whole life, and sadly, that was the end.
You left that show once your MS was too painful. You said it started with just a tingling.
Bit of tingling and numbness in my big toe. Then my second toe, then the rest of my toes. Next thing I know, I’m having trouble standing up. Then I can’t get upstairs, can’t get downstairs. I’m being transported to set in a wheelchair. It came on fast.
This must be hard to accept.
I don’t accept it. It’s bulls—. People don’t understand why I watch Bravo: because then I don’t have to think about it.
I do love “Below Deck.”
“Below Deck” is the best! I’ve watched every single season of every single franchise of “Below Deck.” And “Housewives.” Ask me a question about any show on Bravo. I love them all so much.
I do want to ask: You write about dancing in “Sweet Charity” and breaking your foot. You were in Boston at one point and saw doctors at Harvard.
And there was a hotel that let me swim. Try swimming with one foot out of the water, but the rest of your body in the water. For an hour. Even when I was healthy, I was like: “This is impossible.” But when you put your mind to something, it’s pretty magical what you can do.
Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@gmail.com. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1.
Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurendaley1.