It Took 40 Years Of Silent Pain For Selma Blair To Receive Her Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis. Now, She’s Done Staying Quiet
Selma Blair is curled up in bed. “This is where I’ll be for the remainder of the day,” she texts, attaching a photo of the sheets covering her legs. It is five hours after we first met and Blair is in good spirits but exhausted. The 50-year-old has been in the UK for London Fashion Week and, alongside her Vogue photoshoot, is giving herself a well-earned rest. After revealing her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis to her now 3.1 million Instagram followers in 2018, Blair – famed for roles in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde and Hellboy – has emerged as one of the most well-known faces in the world with a disability. It means she has become adept at working around the constraints of MS, though admits it can be “overwhelming”. “I can be sat on the couch and then I wake up. I’ve passed out and have no idea where I am,” she says, her voice occasionally tremoring. I speak to Blair over the course of a week – often in phone calls, WhatsApp messages and photos – in both London and Los Angeles, an adjustment not only for our time zones but disabilities. Her base for the UK stay is a west London hotel room with a terrace – “spending my life’s savings”, she says – with views of fairy-light-strewn trees across the courtyard. MS means Blair has travelled less than she’d like in recent years, but when she does she always needs a terrace. This isn’t a Hollywood diva request but a requirement for her disability: her breathing and anxiety demand she has a hotel room where she can get outside for fresh air immediately. “I need to find a rich old man with a cough,” she deadpans. At home in Los Angeles, Blair is supported by her service dog, Scout, but travel rules mean she’s without him in London. Instead, she has brought along her 11-year-old son, Arthur, for the job. “Not as reliable,” she says dryly. Arthur, whom Blair shares with a former partner, fashion designer Jason Bleick, is visually a “mini-me” of his mother and the two of them are clearly a team. “We’re learning sign together,” she tells me proudly. “We laugh and cuddle and wrestle. And I need to sleep in short intervals. He’s used to it, but he still knocks on my head at 4am when jet-lagged.” Dressed in a black coat and tartan scarf, her bleached-blonde hair loose, Blair is a fast and generous talker, simultaneously keen to ask how I am, share jokes and speak frankly about her harrowing experience of medical neglect.
Via: Vogue
