Christina Applegate on Past Abuse, Battling MS & Why She Couldn’t Look at Herself in a Mirror

Christina Applegate is speaking out about why, amid her current battle with MS, she’s revealing the dark times in her past. 

Applegate sat down with Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America” to talk about her new memoir “You with the Sad Eyes,” which tells her life story through her diary entries.

She told Robin, "It's been a long time in the making of just over my entire life, you know, talking to my friends or therapists or whatever and they're like, 'You should write this down.' And I'm like, 'Well, I do.' I have my journals.’”

"Those things that I wrote in those diaries and my journals were locked in a box," Applegate admitted. "It was like I never wanted anyone to see them. And for some reason, I was like, 'All right. Let's open it up.’"

Christina even read a 1989 entry from a journal she had planned to destroy. 

Christina said she feels her story could help those struggling in life.

"I know there's a lot of people who have been abused and have lived, like, really hard times. And I just felt like I'm here for you,” Applegate said during the interview. "There’s people going through some dark crap all the time and they feel alone. I felt alone.”

In the book, Christina opened up about a scary ex who left her fearing for her life.

As for why people stay in abusive relationship, Applegate told Roberts, "You're told a lie. And at some point, you just, you're either so scared or you just believe it, that you're not worthy enough for any other kind of love.”

Christina also reveals in her book that she became self-conscious at the changes her body had gone through, an effect of the massive doses of steroids used to treat her MS.

In the book, she wrote, "Sometimes the weight bothered me more than the disease. I didn’t look in the mirror for a year.”

According to Christina, she battled stomach issues due to MS. She was diagnosed in 2021.

She shared, "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 50 pounds or more. These days, my legs are tinier than they’ve ever been.”

In the interview, Applegate also shared her take on “self-love,” which she thinks is “elusive.”