Christina Applegate Gets Candid About ‘Gross’ Sapovirus Experience
Christina Applegate is sharing a rather unpleasant experience she recently went through. The ‘Dead to Me’ star graphically detailed her bout with sapovirus, a virus commonly spread through fecal-oral contact, on her podcast, ‘MeSsy’.
‘I’m gonna be gross,’ Applegate, who also lives with multiple sclerosis (MS), said on the April 23 episode. ‘I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning in a pool of s–t. I didn’t know what happened, and having MS at 3 o’clock in the morning and trying to change your sheets, it’s not fun.’
The health ordeal for Applegate began a few weeks ago when someone close to her ‘dropped the ball’ and brought home COVID-19, leading to Applegate contracting the virus for the first time. Due to being immunocompromised from MS, Applegate experienced more severe symptoms, including a chest infection and a racing heart rate.
Amid her illness, Applegate took a stool test, during which she started vomiting because it was ‘so gross’, to determine the cause of her symptoms. She was eventually diagnosed with sapovirus.
‘It is when you ingest the fecal matter of someone else from your food,’ the 57-year-old explained. ‘Someone else’s poop went into my mouth and I ate it.’
Applegate believes she caught the virus after eating takeout salad from a restaurant that was about to close down for an unrelated reason.
‘I’m almost going on three weeks of being sick from this,’ she said, adding sarcastically, ‘so that’s my fun story.’
Applegate’s Struggles with MS and Adult Diapers
Applegate also discussed her ongoing battle with MS, which can sometimes cause difficulties with bladder control. She expressed her frustrations with adult diapers, saying, ‘Why do they make them pretty for women? Like, ‘Hey baby, you wanna get down and dirty in my diaper lingerie with my own urine?”
Applegate’s MS Journey
In August 2021, Applegate revealed that she had been diagnosed with MS. She has since been open about her journey with the condition, sharing her experiences and advocating for others with MS.
‘It’s been a strange journey,’ Applegate wrote on social media after her diagnosis. ‘But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going.’
Applegate believes her MS journey may have begun even earlier than her 2021 diagnosis. ‘I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we’d be shooting and my leg would buckle,’ she said in an interview. ‘I really just put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather.’
During the filming of the third and final season of ‘Dead to Me’, Applegate’s symptoms worsened.
‘I couldn’t move that far,’ she recalled. ‘I had to tell everybody because I needed help.’
Applegate has received support from her ‘Sweetest Thing’ co-star, Selma Blair, who was diagnosed with MS in 2018. Blair encouraged Applegate to get tested for the disease, which may have helped prevent more severe symptoms.
Applegate has stated that ‘Dead to Me’ will likely be her last on-screen credit, as she is now focusing on her health and well-being.
