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Selma Blair thinks speaking publicly about her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis has damaged her career.
The 50-year-old actress was diagnosed with MS – which can lead to physical and mental problems – in 2018, and she’s convinced that it’s had a negative impact on her career in Hollywood.
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“When I talked about it, there was so much support, but I never got a job again,” she told the BBC.
The actress has experienced fatigue and speech disturbances for decades. However, she remained tight-lipped about the issue for a long time because she thought it would damage her career.
“I was ashamed and concerned I wouldn’t work again,” she said.
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Despite this, Blair actually felt “unburdened” when she received the diagnosis.
“It was a relief,” the Dark Horse star said. “There was a little bit of panic, like how will I have the energy to ever even deal with this?
“I had been down that road for so many years without a diagnosis that I did feel kind of hopeless still, but I was hoping that the diagnosis of MS would give me so many more options.
“It was an amazing, comforting feeling to know that there was a whole community of chronic illness or MS patients.”
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Blair believes that Hollywood has made strides in its representation of people with disabilities. However, she insists that much more can still be done.
The actress – who has an 11-year-old son Arthur – said: “There is a bigger responsibility to create iconic images with people that have disabilities.
“I know that my own MS took my career down. I had to stop working for years, even before I had my son [in 2011], because I wasn’t well.
“Disability was affecting me and taking me out of the workforce and it created huge changes in my physical appearance … things that couldn’t be in a movie or a TV show.”