Christina Applegate revealed how taking a joint from her mom ultimately caused her to cut out smoking altogether.
“Me on any type of cannabis product is not a pretty sight,” Applegate, 52, revealed during the Tuesday, June 18, episode of her and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s “MeSsy” podcast.
The Dead to Me actress said she gets “real paranoia, it’ll destroy ya” and “real freaky” reactions when smoking weed.
Sigler, 43, joked that she likes to take gummies before trying to put together furniture, but Applegate’s past with weed has turned her off the drug for good.
Applegate recalled getting a joint from her mom “before I knew it was MS [multiple sclerosis] and they thought it was peripheral neuropathy.” Applegate was in “a lot of pain and anxiety” over not knowing what was wrong with her health, so she took the item.
“I was flipping out, so I went outside, and I smoked half of it,” she remembered. “I saw serpents on my feet. My tongue was moving all weird.”
The experience freaked out Applegate who promptly called her mom asking, “‘What the f–k? What is this?’ She goes, ‘Tini, it’s medical grade. It’s supposed to be one hit.’”
Applegate reminded listeners that she “smoked half of it” and thought she was “going to die” as a result. “I made myself stay up until it wore off. It was hours,” the star told Sigler, noting now “we don’t [smoke]. Not this lady. Not gonna happen.”
Sigler had a scary weed story of her own to share, revealing that it happened the first time she took an edible 16 or 17 years ago.
“I was going on a date with a famous dancer. It was a setup,” she recalled, teasing that her date was someone who was on Dancing With the Stars. “We go to this bar, and I eat this edible before. And I get there, and I couldn’t speak. I just kept nodding my head.”
Sigler’s date took her back to her apartment and she remembered saying to him over and over, “You cannot tell my parents I’m dying from weed!”
Applegate, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, explained that cannabis is not good for her because she already has an “overactive brain that has major anxiety anyway.” In fact, she told her cohost that her brain doesn’t allow her to just sit and listen to music on end.
“If I just sat here and listened to music, the brain that is so chatty, would mess me up,” Applegate said. “Hence why we watch our Bravo shows. … They’re doing all the stuff, and I can live vicariously through their crazy.”
While the Emmy winner doesn’t plan to turn to cannabis to ease her pain with MS, she has become more vocal about her health struggles in recent years.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,’” Applegate told The New York Times in November 2022, reflecting on the early days of her diagnosis. “And there is no better. But it was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So, I needed that time.”
Applegate has since made a few public appearances including attending her Walk of Fame Ceremony in fall 2022 and January’s Emmy Awards.
