Actress Selma Blair Brings Chronic Illness Awareness to the Oscars

Selma Blair brought chronic illness awareness to the red carpet on Sunday at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, posing with her cane for photographers. It was Blair’s first public appearance since announcing in Oct. 2018 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

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

Selma Blair, who recently revealed she has MS, is using her cane at the #Oscars @VanityFair party. So grateful to her for making disability visible on the red carpet! #Oscars #DisabledAndCute #DisabledPeopleAreHot #DisTheOscars pic.twitter.com/M2aZx3ye9n

— Breakthrough U.S. (@BreakthroughUS) February 25, 2019

The day before the Oscars, Blair shared a photo of her cane getting customized for the event. “I burst into tears,” she wrote of seeing her new cane. “These gifts to get me through.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

This is love ????. @tombachik customizing my cane with my monogram and a real pink #diamond. How did I get so lucky? I wanted a special cane for #vanityfair dinner. So… @lyon_hearted went out and found patent leather and @bic_owen and he stitched it on. Hours of love put in. And then #tombachick made it especially magical. I burst into tears. These gifts to get me through. #subtle #chic #love. I can’t thank these three enough. There are angels. ???? #oscars2019

A post shared by Selma Blair (@selmablair) on Feb 23, 2019 at 7:51am PST

Since the initial post sharing her diagnosis, Blair has kept her fans and followers updated on Instagram as she adapts to her “new normal.”

“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,” Blair wrote. “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.”

In Nov. 2018, she shared the grief she experiences even 15 years after the onset of her symptoms. In her post, she recounts trying to show her son a cartwheel — an action she typically does with ease.

“I was the most gymnastic mom I knew,” she wrote. “A cartwheel was just as easy as taking a breath. But when I began to turn one yesterday on an impulse to show my son who had forgotten, it went all wrong. A jumble of confusion for this body I knew so well. A heap. A heap on the ground.”

Blair also posted and the anxiety and isolation she’s experienced. “There is a truth with neurogedenerative brain disease,” Blair wrote. “It is uncomfortable. It is a stadium of uncontrollable anxiety at times.”