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Selma Blair Says She Hasn’t Had a Relapse Since Her Stem-Cell Treatment
After chemotherapy and stem-cell treatment, Selma Blair reports that she is thankful to have gone a “couple of years” without an MS relapse. The actor of Cruel Intentions said to Stellar (published Nov. 22) that being relapse-free is equivalent to not “getting more damage in my brain,” and she has seen some changes due to “the neuroplasticity vibe.”
Selma Blair: MS Off, Back to Advocacy and Acting
After her chemotherapy and stem-cell treatment for multiple sclerosis, Selma Blair is “very, very lucky” to have been relapse-free since 2021. The 53-year-old told Stellar that she is relieved not to be “accumulating more damage in my brain” and credits “the vibe of neuroplasticity” for her improvement.
Blair explained, “Different people have different experiences of MS.” She said that she feels an obligation to speak out and confront the stigma. Now that her health is stable, she is also going back to her profession — she has three new acting projects in the pipeline.
Selma Blair: Focus on Health and Return to Work
“No one asked me if I wanted another role and I didn’t expect it or anything but it seems that in fact there are some new roles coming my way,” Selma Blair joked and then said she is “really looking forward to being in movies again.” The 53-year-old singe (she has a son Arthur, 14) said she is mainly thinking about combining her treatments with the career and in the meantime living a nice love life with a mysterious guy from the Midwest region. However, marriage is not on her radar: she told Us Weekly that if one tries to organize a wedding in the middle of the hustle and bustle of motherhood and continuous blood treatments a relationship will most probably “be like that, falling off by the wayside.” After filming her MS journey in Introducing, Selma Blair in 2021, she is thankful for being without a relapse and is coming back to both advocacy and acting.
Selma Blair Tracked Her Early MS Symptoms with Videos Before She Was Diagnosed
Selma Blair was making cell-phone video diaries of herself and she says one from June 2018—just two months before she was diagnosed with MS—shows that she was already having a hard time writing and texting. She had originally considered the muscle spasms that she experienced in particular the one in her left leg which made her walking uneven at Christian Siriano’s Fall/Winter 2018 show at New York Fashion Week, as the result of horseback riding, a hobby she loved.
Blair confesses that she had been feeling “off” since the birth of her son Arthur in 2011, but the initial attempts that she made to be taken seriously were frequently met with rejection. Doctors told her that it was most likely postpartum sadness and her symptoms were more likely to be those of an overwhelmed new mom.
Selma Blair Opens Up About Her Turbulent Relationship With Her Mother
After the birth of her son Arthur, Blair admits that she was a very emotionally sensitive person and she even remembers her mother Molly—who looks a lot like her—telling her that she was not the kind of person to make a good marriage or become a good mother. That tense, frequently scathing relationship was the haunting presence of Blair’s life for a long time. She recalls Molly’s negative reaction to her success in Cruel Intentions—questioning why she put her tongue so much in the kiss scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar—however, Blair still held on to her love for her.
Molly’s Tough Love Cast a Long Shadow for Selma Blair
According to Blair, her mom Molly, who passed away last year in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, was probably fighting depression and didn’t give her support very often, as if she was trying to harden her: “life is not going to be your friend, so you better work it out on your own.” The fact that she was not allowed to go to Detroit to see her parents when Molly died made it bereavement that was already complicated and painful layered with another painful piece.
Selma Blair Opts to Have Stem‑Cell Therapy After Weighing the Risks
Blair confesses that she occasionally sees her mother in herself, saying “my brain is hijacked sometimes, too,” and getting a diagnosis was in some ways a relief for her because it gave her the opportunity to move on. However, when typical drugs did not stop her deterioration, she decided to look for other solutions. Bonny Burke, her assistant, stated that Jennifer Grey might have recommended stem‑cell transplants after witnessing a relative getting better by the procedure at Northwestern.
Blair decided to have the treatment after she thought about the risk of a friend who warned her that she might not survive the process but she still went on with the intervention hoping for a recovery.
Selma Blair Handles Good Days, Bad Days and Sobriety for Her Son
Selma Blair’s healing is a combination of advances and retreats: there are days when she hardly needs a cane to walk and even goes up a steep rocky path on her Studio City estate, while at other times her movement is very restricted. She celebrates small wins—like when in June 2019 she was able to cut strawberries by herself, which is something she hadn’t been able to do for months—and also the loving moments with her son Arthur, who is the absolute core of her life. Blair additionally thinks back to a scary 2016 incident when she went unconscious during a flight with Arthur and his dad, Jason Bleick; she gave her immediate apology and says she hasn’t drunk any alcohol since then.
Selma Blair Reflects on a Frightening Flight, Sobriety, and First MS Symptoms
“It is definitely the worst thing I have ever done as a parent and thank god no one was hurt,” Selma Blair recalls of her memory loss during a 2016 flight with her son Arthur and his father, Jason Bleick. She described the event as “self‑destructive” and went straight to her regret—only to follow it up with her decision to quit drinking forever.
Blair also remembered that she was in pain on the same trip and that she had taken a pill with alcohol. This is just one of the incidents that made her question whether MS had been slowly coming into her life way before she was formally diagnosed. She says those times made her look over her past again and consider them as her first MS symptoms.
Selma Blair Gets Son and Herself Ready for a Stem‑Cell Transplant “New‑Body” Day”
In order to spare her son Arthur the shock of her changed appearance, Selma Blair had him shave off her hair before she left for Chicago to get her stem‑cell transplant. Her treatment was started with preparatory chemotherapy and a thorough evaluation—which is a test of doctors’ cognitive and physical resilience—then followed by injections to make her cell harvesting friendly. It was followed by five days of heavy chemotherapy and hospital isolation; on the last day, she kept it to herself that “tomorrow will be my new body’s birthday.”
Selma Blair’s Stem-Cell Transplant Gave Hope — and a Difficult Reality
Blair made the transplant a psychological and physical multistep process: she got her son ready as well, so Arthur could buzz her hair and he wouldn’t be shocked; then she started preparative chemo, went through cognitive and physical tests, received injections to make her cells ready for the harvest, and finally, for five days of heavy chemo and strict hospital isolation. She very quietly wrote down the date of the last day as “my new body’s birthday.”
Selma Blair Talks About Stem Cell Transplant Recovery That Is Very Hard
Blair went through the engraftment period after her transplant when the doctors were waiting for the new cells to take hold. She pretty much broke down the tough recovery – a metallic taste in her mouth, a head she had buzzed and kept using a lint roller, a shaky cane walk mimicking Fosse, and was let out of the hospital after 19 days.
However, the operation was not an instant cure. Blair shares that she still had to deal with issues of balance, vision, and other residual symptoms, and she also confessed the depressive impact of “judging the process” as she fought inside herself the disappointment of not feeling better right away.”
Robin Roberts Helped Selma Blair Regain Her Spirits — Then a Terrible Revelation Followed
During the TIME 100 Health Summit, cancer survivor Robin Roberts’ words were like a balm to Selma Blair’s soul; Roberts gave her the impression that it takes about two years to feel “right” again after a bone-marrow transplant, thereby, providing a hopeful reference point.
However, Blair confronted a deeply worrisome impasse after an L.A. based doctor informed her that for the first time her brain’s gray matter – the one that is the basis of muscle control, memory, speech, and emotion – was showing signs of damage. She thinks that no prior specialists have been to point out that even though she has been through a number of tests and scans, this makes the diagnosis both surprising and very scary.
Selma Blair Making Headway But Still Has Some Challenges
During the warmer months of 2020, Selma Blair was very much on the mend as she could be seen having a small backyard birthday celebration with friends and going for a swim with her son Arthur; nevertheless, recovery was still a bit of a roller coaster. Some days were still so overwhelming that she had to stay in bed, and going out in public was more exhausting for her body and mind than staying at home in the quiet. The return to horseback riding after a long break was somewhat happy and somewhat sad: she was glad riding again but irritated that her energy only allowed her to trot for about 10 seconds at a time.
After MS Treatment Selma Blair Embraces the Small Victories
“However, her trainer comforted her by saying that one should rather consider the fact that it was actually done for 10 seconds.” “Just think when was the last time you could do something like that for 10 seconds, it’s unbelievable.” For Blair, everyday victories — from ten seconds of running to cutting a strawberry — are significant milestones of her recovery.
She confers that it is weird being a disabled person who supports other disabled people, but those moments of connection have become her new calling. Even tiny things, such as making someone less conscious of their cane usage, are of great value. Each small step is not only recovery in motion but also a way of transforming her personal struggle into a source of support for others.
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Selma Blair Gets Tranquility, Metaphorically Throws off Her Past
“I’m embarrassed to say, I’m at peace,” was Selma Blair’s confession in the final moments of the documentary as she impulsively jumped into her newly resurfaced pool with her deceased mother’s “magician dress” — a piece of clothing that Molly never let her wear. Selma Blair removed the dress underwater, releasing it to the bottom as a metaphorical goodbye to a difficult past, and then she swam towards the light of a new and promising future.