Selma Blair keeps on fighting the good fight — and winning! The “Cruel Intentions” star has suffered from multiple sclerosis since she was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease in Aug. 2018.
MS has caused the 49-year-old to deal with immense pain and physical disability. Blair also had difficulty speaking and lost the ability to use her left leg. A year went by where she dealt with her physical pain and Blair decided to undergo a stem cell transplant and chemotherapy to help fix her immune system.
During a virtual appearance at the discovery+ Television Critics Association panel Monday to promote her upcoming documentary, “Introducing Selma Blair,” Blair said she’s now in remission.
“My prognosis is great. I’m in remission. Stem cell put me in remission,” the “After” star said. “It took about a year after stem cell for the inflammation and lesions to really go down.”
She added that she wanted to wait to share her story with the world. “I was reluctant to talk about it because I felt this need to be more healed and more fixed,” she revealed. “I’ve accrued a lifetime of some baggage in the brain that still needs a little sorting out or accepting. That took me a minute to get to that acceptance. It doesn’t look like this for everyone.
“I have really felt unwell and misunderstood for so long that it’s just me,” she continued.
Blair admitted that having her MS flare up was tough on her as well as her 10-year-old son, Arthur. “It’s not that MS was on a path killing me. I mean it was killing me with this flare lasting so long,” she added. “I was so burnt out. If there was an option to halt me, to rebalance after being hit so hard with that last flare, it’s absolutely for my son. I have no desire to leave him alone right now.”
The Michigan native explained she has many friends and family supporting her, saying that getting an MS diagnosis “can be very isolating” for certain people.
“People took great care of me. I never really like life. I do now — strange, huh?” she said. “Just because life’s so weird. I was so scared in life. To suddenly start to find an identity and a safety in me, to figure out boundaries, time management and energy. I’m having the time of my life.”
Blair concluded that she loves how her fame has helped bring awareness to the disease and it has helped others to find strength in their own illnesses.
“To hear even just me showing up with a cane or sharing something that might be embarrassing, it was a key for a lot of people in finding comfort in themselves and that means everything to me,” the “Legally Blonde” actress said. “I’m thrilled that I have some platform. In no means am I saying that I’m speaking for all people in this condition or any condition of chronic illness, I’m speaking my story and I that helps normalize one thing to open the door for other people to be comfortable in telling their stories. I’m thrilled to have this here.”
“Introducing Selma Blair” will premiere in select theaters on Oct. 15 and will stream on discovery+ starting Oct. 21.