Selma Blair, the actress known for her roles in Legally Blonde, Cruel Intentions and The Sweetest Thing, has revealed she’s “truly relapse-free” of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) symptoms.
She shared the happy news with People while at The Daily Front Row‘s 9th Annual Fashion Los Angeles Awards, held on April 24, 2025.
At the event itself, Selma told the audience, “I am doing amazingly well. I’ve been feeling great for about a year.”
Selma was first diagnosed with MS in August 2018.
Since then, she has been extremely vocal about her experience to advocate and raise awareness for the condition.
In 2021, she highlighted how much her life had changed since her diagnosis in the documentary Introducing, Selma Blair.
Then in 2022, Selma released a memoir, titled Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up. In her memoir, she heavily details her condition and her struggles because of it.
Furthermore, in November 2023, the 52-year-old spoke of the “gender bias” she experienced as a young woman. Selma told Meet The Press that when she was younger, doctors misdiagnosed her MS symptoms as “menstruation” side effects.
“I had very clear signs at that time, [that I had] optic neuritis as a child – which is only from brain trauma or MS – and yet they didn’t recognise it immediately, even though I was seeking doctors my entire childhood,” Selma began.
“And it was a gender bias, because there would be a boy in my grade that would go in for the exact same chronic headache and fever, and he is in surgery and an MRI within the week.
“I was never given an MRI even though I always had headaches and fevers and balance [issues] or my leg didn’t work. They just said, ‘Oh [you’re being] dramatic,’” she continued.
How did Selma Blair know she had MS?
Selma has said in numerous interviews that she suffered from multiple MS symptoms. She details symptoms like losing use of her right eye, losing bladder control, and waking up in the middle of the night laughing uncontrollably. And furthermore, she had been experiencing them since the age of 7.
However, doctors often dismissed her. And so, she didn’t receive a formal MS diagnosis until 2018, when she was 46 years old.
In February 2018, Selma walked in a show during New York Fashion Week. While there, she told Town & Country that, “It was on that runway, with the thrill of walking in the show, that I suddenly lost feeling in my left leg.”
Six months later, doctors found lesions on Selma’s brain gave her an official diagnosis
Has Selma Blair recovered from MS?
Sadly, MS is incurable. So while different treatments can help slow its progression, people suffering from the condition, like Selma, will never fully recover from it.
Selma has said that an intense treatment that she underwent in 2019 did help her. And, as aforementioned, she’s now “truly relapse-free.”
“I did an entire HSTC, which is a hematopoietic bone marrow transplant. So, we harvested from my own bone marrow before I was exposed to many, many days of deep chemo… I immediately felt better; I never felt better than when I was on chemo,” she told Meet The Press.
What is Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?
Multiple sclerosis, commonly referred to as ‘MS’, is a chronic neurological disorder. It causes the immune system to attack the central nervous system.
This autoimmune response leads to inflammation, demyelination, and the formation of scar tissue. This disrupts the normal transmission of electrical impulses along the nerves. The resulting damage can manifest in a variety of symptoms. This can include fatigue, impaired coordination, muscle weakness, and problems with vision, sensation, or cognition.
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