Selma Blair admits feeling ‘thrilled’ about her MS diagnosis

Selma Blair has spoken about the aftermath of her initial multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis.

The 52-year-old actor was first diagnosed with MS in 2018. She recently reflected on feeling “thrilled” after being given a label for what she was experiencing while speaking to People Wednesday at the PHM Healthfront 2025.

“It's so funny. I felt like people thought it had to be some tragic thing, but I was like, ‘No, you don't understand,’” she told the publication. “I was feeling tragic inside before, and thinking this is just all psychosomatic and how can I change myself?”

MS is “an unpredictable disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body,” as noted by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Although symptoms vary for everyone, they can include numbness in the body, memory problems, and blindness.

Blair said that prior to her diagnosis, she wasn’t sure how people went about their daily lives while feeling OK.

“How do they do that? How do they feel that way? How does that mom carry her baby and stay awake?” the Cruel Intentions actor said. “I just did not understand how I was so different from people, but yet totally kind of fine-ish.”

After receiving her diagnosis, Blair said she felt “seen.” “I kind of joke like, wait, there's receipts. This validates this vision here, this validates this or this or this, that people wouldn't really see because with relapsing MS, it can go away. It can relapse,” she said.

An MS relapse is described as the occurrence of new MS symptoms or the worsening of old ones for at least 24 hours when it’s been 30 days since their last relapse, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The Legally Blonde actor previously said during an April 2023 interview with British Vogue that her doctor initially advised her to keep her diagnosis a secret.

“The advice was to keep it to myself. That work ‘wouldn’t have to know.’ People didn’t feel safe sharing that stuff,” she told the publication.

Blair also reflected on some of the physical challenges she faced throughout her childhood, decades before being diagnosed with MS. At the age of seven, she told Vogue, she lost use of her right eye, left leg, and her bladder.

While she didn’t realize it at the time, the symptoms she had were a result of juvenile MS. Her then-doctor didn’t take her health struggles seriously, so her condition as a child went undiagnosed.

“If you’re a boy with those symptoms, you get an MRI. If you’re a girl, you’re called ‘crazy,’” the actor said.