Selma Blair has made her first public appearance since revealing that she has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
The film and television actress appeared at the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party, where she was filmed walking the red carpet, with the support of a cane and Troy Nankin, her former-publicist turned manager.
Journalist Jessica Radloff shared a video of Blair arriving at the party in a Tweet that has now gone viral.
"The moment we will all be talking about tomorrow is the courageous Selma Blair, making her first appearance since announcing her MS diagnosis," Radloff, Glamour's West Coast editor, wrote in the caption. "She needs a cane to help walk, but she came to prove that no matter how tough this disease, she is a fighter."
The moment we will all be talking about tomorrow is the courageous #SelmaBlair, making her first appearance since announcing her MS diagnosis, at the VF Oscar party. She needs a cane to help walk, but she came to prove that no matter how tough this disease, she is a fighter. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/bCTo0hA59d
— Jessica Radloff (@JRadloff) February 25, 2019
As she walked the red carpet on Sunday night, Blair, 46, shed a tear which she could be seen wiping away in several photos from the night.
"There are moments that define us. This is one of those indelibly watermarked in my heart. This is [Troy Nankin]; my former publicist turned manager, best friend, and fake husband. We joke," her Instagram post reflecting on the evening began.
She has since given her first interview since the diagnosis.
"I had tears. They weren't tears of panic," the Cruel Intentions actress recalled in her Good Morning America interview, which was filmed ahead of the Vanity Fair party. "They were tears of knowing I now had to give in to a body that had loss of control, and there was some relief in that."
“Being able to just put out what being in the middle of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis is like," she went on to say. "So my speech, as you’ll notice, I have spasmodic dysphonia right now… It is interesting to put it out there, to be here to say this is what my particular case looks like right now."
She went on to add that telling her son has been the most difficult part of the process for her.
"I did have to tell him after the MRI. I said, ‘I have something called multiple sclerosis,'" she said. " And he almost cried and said, ‘Will it kill you?’ And I said, ‘No. I mean, we never know what kills us, Arthur. But this is not the doctor telling me I’m dying.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, OK,’ and that was it."
Blair also revealed that she has reached out to Back to the Future star, Michael J Fox, who was diagnosed Parkinson's in 1998.
“I said, ‘I don’t know who to tell, but I am dropping things. I’m doing strange things,'” Blair said. “He got in touch with me and we began conversations. He really helped me… he gives me hope.”
Blair took to Instagram in October 2018 to reveal that she had been diagnosed with MS in August.
"I have #multiplesclerosis. I am in an exacerbation," said Blair, who is mother to seven-year-old son Arthur, wrote on Instagram. "I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS. But we are doing it. And I laugh and I don't know exactly what I will do precisely but I will do my best."
