Christina Applegate was not going to meet in person, no matter how many times I promised to be flexible if she had to cancel because of a flare-up of her multiple sclerosis. It was Zoom or bust, which was fine because Applegate, 54, the Emmy-winning star of “Married … with Children” and “Dead to Me,” among many other series and movies dating back to her 1972 debut on “Days of Our Lives,” turned out to be an impeccable virtual host.
Before we started talking about her memoir, “You With the Sad Eyes,” Applegate set the scene in her bedroom in Laurel Canyon, where she reclined against a tall headboard wearing a black T-shirt, a crescent moon necklace and a floppy topknot.
“Right now it’s a disaster on my side table,” Applegate said. She held up a king size bottle of Pepto-Bismol and a bowl of Lay’s barbecue potato chips. Then she plucked a nasal diffuser from the flotsam at her bedside, tucking the silicone horseshoe into her nostrils to demonstrate how it works. She pointed to pictures of her father and tulips from her mother and read all her above-the-waist tattoos, including her daughter’s name, her deceased cat’s name and one in black script that said, “And so it is.”
Finally, Applegate introduced Jake Ryan, her heating pad (named for the love interest in “Sixteen Candles”) and a floppy blue emotional support stuffed animal whose arms she drapes over her shoulders when she’s stressed.
“I’m scared,” Applegate said as conversation turned to her book, coming out from Little, Brown on March 3. “I’m probably going to cry.”
Applegate has long been known as a fast-talking funny girl but, as her Cyndi Lauper-inspired title indicates, “You With the Sad Eyes” is unlikely to be accompanied by a laugh track.
The book focuses primarily on Applegate’s first three decades and includes multiple accounts of abuse beginning when she was 5 years old.
There was the neighborhood “caregiver” who forced Applegate to perform oral sex on her. (“This is where the story darkens almost to black,” Applegate writes.) Her mother’s boyfriend, who picked up Applegate by her hair and threw her against a wall. (He also facilitated her mother’s drug addiction, she writes.) And finally Applegate’s own boyfriend, who slammed her head against the floor with such force that the hairdresser on “Married … with Children” had to get creative to mask the swelling.
As Applegate said, “I went to work and it was funny. But I went home and — not funny.”
Violence aside — and it’s a hefty aside — the book manages to be dishy, candid and amusing, like Applegate herself. Now retired from acting, she co-hosts a podcast, “MeSsy,” with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, about the challenges of living with multiple sclerosis.
This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and colorful language, which Applegate used liberally and (it must be said) expertly.
How are you feeling today?
I’m having trouble walking because the weather has been freaking weird. I was barfing earlier. We’ve figured out, I cannot have penne a la vodka. But if I eat papaya with lime and cherries, I don’t throw up the next day. If I have anything other than that, I am a disaster. It’s a whole thing.
It’s been four years since you finished the final season of “Dead to Me.” Why did you decide to to write a memoir?
I worked every day of my life for 50 years and here I was, kind of stopped in my tracks. An agent asked if I wanted to write a book. I said, “I guess now is the time because I’m freaking bored. I ran out of ‘Real Housewives’ episodes so I might as well write one.” Two and a half years later, here we are.
Tell me about the process.
I worked with someone who recorded me talking for six or seven hours a day, every single day, for months and months and months. He put it down on paper, with the exception of the [expletive that rhymes with ducks]. I gave him my journals to take home. Do you know how that feels to go, “You can literally read through all of this”? Half the book is written from the journals. So this isn’t a 54-year-old woman’s recollections of what happened when she was 18; this is an 18-year-old girl’s recollections on the page.
Before you started the book, how often had you dipped back into your journals?
Not at all, girl. They were in a steel fire-resistant box and my assistant, who is also my best friend, had instructions to burn them when I die. Then my daughter was going through some [rhymes with sit] recently, and I wanted her to see she wasn’t alone. I found a journal from when I was around 15 and went, “Take this to your room.” She was like, “Oh man, Mom, you were so screwed up.” And I was like, “Yeah, but I’m here for you. I get you. I am you, I just don’t have the septum piercing.”
What was the hardest part to revisit?
Being 5 and being molested. I can’t even say it without crying. I wanted to say what went on because I know a lot of people went through things like this. I’m here for them. Write me, let’s talk, let’s get into community. Because that’s all I have right now.
Take me back to Laurel Canyon in the ’70s and ’80s. What was it like?
That smell of the leaves on the ground after a rain was like nothing else. Coming home and your mom is sitting there and there’s a fire in the fireplace and incense burning. Kids running down the hill to each others’ houses. It was all single moms; they trusted us. Those are the things that give me such beauty, such love.
But it was also freaky weird, especially when cocaine arrived. And behind our closed door was something so frightening, with that man and my mom. I can see it so vividly. I can smell the whiskey on his breath; I can see the pins in his eyes. The tuna fish sandwich he was holding with the cigarette in his mouth when he was nodding out.
Have you spoken about this before?
No, ma’am. My mom said it was really hard to read. I think she wanted to forget it, but you don’t forget that kind of stuff, especially if you’re a kid and you’re watching. But like I’ve always said, we’re not doing this [mimes playing a violin] — because I’ve lived a long life and I’m still here.
Having stepped back into that world, what would you say to your younger self?
He wasn’t worth it. So much of my time and my brain was spent succumbing to the fact that heartbreak was going to kill me. And, boy, did that girl not know how much more was going to hit her. I had cancer, I have MS. I just feel like I want to hug her, but she’d probably put a cigarette in my face. Also, dork? Don’t smoke when you’re 13.
What was it like to hold your book in your hand?
Definitely not a sense of catharsis or closure. You can’t just say it’s done and now I don’t think about it anymore. I don’t need to slam the book closed; this is my life and it’s part of my fiber and my being and my DNA and my cellular level of who I am. For me, it’s more: It happened, how can I help others?
What do you wish people knew about MS?
It feels like pushing a boulder up a hill. My friend Cindy and I want to write a pamphlet called “MS for Dumbasses.” We’re going to pass it out to help people understand: It’s slowly killing us, guys. Period, end of story.
Whether it’s 20 years, 30 years, it’s taking away our functions. I don’t want to hear about your soy oil water tincture crap. No thank you. We’re so tired. We’re tired to a point where you would never understand. You. Will Never. Understand. I wake up and my hands are cramped. I can’t move my head, I can’t walk to the bathroom. So don’t say to me, “You’re looking so good today.” I don’t want to hear it. Just help me up. That’s all.
Elisabeth Egan is a writer and editor at the Times Book Review. She has worked in the world of publishing for 30 years.
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