Actress Selma Blair had a reason to smile at discovery+’s Television Critics Association panel for her upcoming documentary Introducing Selma Blair: Her multiple sclerosis is in remission.
“My prognosis is great,” the former Cruel Intentions star said. “Stem cell [treatments] put me in remission. It took about a year after stem cell for the inflammation and lesions to really go down.”
Blair, 49, had undergone chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant to essentially “reboot” her nervous system, she explained.
The actress also said that she’s been feeling much better of late, but didn’t want to rush to make headlines. “I was reluctant to talk about it because I felt this need to be more healed and more fixed,” she noted.
“I’ve accrued a lifetime of some baggage in the brain that still needs a little sorting out or accepting,” the actress continued. “That took me a minute to get to that acceptance.”
Blair added, “I have really felt unwell and misunderstood for so long that it’s just me.”
Selma revealed her diagnosis in 2018, later telling ABC News’ Robin Roberts that she felt “relief” after she finally learned why she’d been suffering years of crippling pain and other physical symptoms.
“I was really struggling with, ‘How am I gonna get by in life?'” she told Robin. “And [being] not taken seriously by doctors, just, ‘Single mother, you’re exhausted, financial burden, blah, blah, blah.’ And so when I got the diagnosis I cried with some relief. Like, ‘Oh, good, I’ll be able to do something.'”
Introducing Selma Blair, which profiles the actress’ life with MS and her struggles with her treatment, opens in theaters October 15 and starts streaming on discovery+ on October 21.
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