Selma Blair-An Inspiration

Denise Najera, Sports Recorder
March 5, 2019

Actress Selma Blair, best known for starring in Cruel Intentions and Legally Blonde is speaking out out about her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, which she found out about four months ago.

MS is a an incurable disease of the central nervous system that affects how the body and brain communicate. Common symptoms include fatigue, tingling, nerve pain, and difficulty walking. The actress has trouble with moving, memory, dressing, and now is struggling with her vision after a bad reaction to a high-dose glucocorticoid treatment. Blair appeared on the red carpet for the Vanity Fair Oscars party on Sunday, using a black cane for support. She revealed she had MS on Instagram in October.

During her interview with “GMA” at her Los Angeles home, Blair was in an “exacerbation” of MS, or an attack that causes new symptoms or the worsening of existing symptoms. The actress said she was suffering from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder affecting the voice muscles in the larynx.

On an interview with GMA, Blair says for years she has been suffering with all the symptoms of MS, but every time she went to a doctor to help, they never could figure out what was wrong.

Right after her 7-year-old son was born is when she started to have MS flair ups. The 46-year-old remembers thinking ‘How am I going to get by in life?’ What with not being taken seriously by doctors, and being a single mother, she was exhausted.

“I had tears. They weren’t tears of panic,” Blair said about the moment last August that she was diagnosed. “They were tears of knowing I now had to give in to a body that had loss of control, and there was some relief in that.” Blair says it brought tears, but also relief. “I was ashamed and I was doing the best I could and I was a great mother, but it was killing me,” she said. “And so when I got the diagnosis I cried with some relief. Like, ‘Oh, good, I’ll be able to do something.'”

Selma teller her son about her condition. He asks “Will it kill you?”. Selma says ‘No. I mean, we never know what kills us, Arthur. But this is not the doctor telling me I’m dying,'” she said. “And he was like, ‘Oh, OK,’ and that was it.”

Despite having to deal with all of this, the “Cruel Intentions” and “Legally Blonde” actress said she was doing “very well” and was happy to be able to show “what being in the middle of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis is like. Blair feels people with these disabilities are “invisible” and wants to be able to help them, and already knows how she plans to do so.

Selma Blair wants to team up with fashion designers and make stylish clothing for people with disabilities. “I would like to partner with someone like Christian Siriano on a line for everyone – not just people who necessarily need adaptive clothing, but for those who want comfort, too.

“A cane, I think, can be a great fashion accessory,”

“It can still be chic. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice style. Like, let’s get elastic waistbands to look a little bit better.”