Christina Applegate has formed an unlikely friendship with a BELOW DECK reality star amid her brutal MS battle

A star of popular reality TV show Below Deck has revealed how she formed a surprising friendship with Hollywood actress Christina Applegate after the latter reached out to her via social media.

Christina, 52, once described herself as an ‘uber weirdo fan’ of the much-loved Bravo television series, which chronicles the lives of the crew members who work and reside aboard a superyacht during charter season.

During a December 2022 interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the Married… with Children star admitted that she had ‘slipped into the DMs of certain crew members’ and said they were ‘her friends’ – and one of those crew members has now opened up about their friendship with the award-winning actress.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Daisy Kelliher revealed how Christina has been a ‘huge support’ and has even opened up to the chief stewardess about her health struggles since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three years ago.

When asked how her life had changed since she joined Below Deck in 2014, Daisy, 36, replied: ‘It hasn’t changed dramatically, but there has been small things and I’ve definitely had celebrities reach out to me, which is very surreal.

‘I’ve had Christina Applegate. She’s a huge Bravo fan, and she reached out to me via Instagram, and was massively supportive. She said, “Hey Daisy”, and we FaceTime and stuff – she’s just so nice.’

Confirming that the mother-of-one contacted her personally, Daisy continued: ‘She was just a huge support with so much going on, and we just talked about everything. 

‘We talked about what she was going through because obviously she’s sick with MS, so we were talking about what she’s going through and about what I was going through, and honestly, we talked [to each other] like two friends.’

Daisy explained that she’s not sure how Christina is currently doing health-wise but revealed it’s been ‘a struggle’ for the Dead To Me actress – and hopes to spend time with her in person one day.

‘Hopefully we’ll meet up,’ Daisy said. ‘She lives in Los Angeles and I’m in Los Angeles all the time, but she’s busy with her family and I know she is taking it easy, and keeping all of her energy for her MS, but hopefully we’ll make time.’

Christina first opened up about her MS diagnosis back in August 2021 – ten years after she underwent a double mastectomy to treat breast cancer. 

The actress decided to share the news with her fans on Twitter – now known as X – and revealed that she’d found out ‘a few months ago’ that she had the autoimmune disease, which affects the central nervous system.

She wrote: ‘Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition.

‘It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a****** blocks it.’

She continued: ‘As one of my friends that has MS said, “we wake up and take the indicated action”. And that’s what I do. So now I ask for privacy. As I go through this thing. Thank you xo.’ 

Since then, Christina has been refreshingly honest about how MS has impacted her day-to-day life and in May 2023, she told Vanity Fair that she could no longer go down the stairs by herself and is ‘frightened’ to take showers.

‘With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day. You just have s***ty days. People are like, “Well, why don’t you take more showers?” Well, because getting in the shower is frightening,’ Christina said.

‘You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle. Especially because I have a glass shower. It’s frightening to me to get in there. There are just certain things that people take for granted in their lives that I took for granted. 

‘Going down the stairs, carrying things — you can’t do that anymore. It f***ing sucks. I can still drive my car short distances. I can bring up food to my kid. Up, never down.’

Christina also revealed she kept her contact with other people to a minimum as she was immunocompromised and to keep her nervous system in check she liked to keep her life as ‘quiet and as mellow as possible.’

Of having visitors, she said: ‘It’s exhausting. Imagine just being in a crowd of people and how loud that is. It’s like 5,000 times louder for anyone who has lesions on their brains.’

Fans were pleasantly surprised when Christina made an appearance at the 2024 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles last month, and received a standing ovation when she arrived onstage to present the Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series award.

Christina, who leaned on a walking stick as she was escorted onstage by host Anthony Anderson, said: ‘Thank you so much. Oh my god, you’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up. It’s fine.’ 

She then joked that her body was ‘not by Ozempic.’

The actress previously shared that she gained 40lbs after her diagnosis owing to ‘inactivity and medications.’

‘I didn’t look like myself, and I didn’t feel like myself,’ she said.

Christina had to film her Netflix dark comedy Dead To Me even though her body was changing. She was so upset with how she looked, and revealed that she refused to watch the show.

‘At some point I was able to distance myself from my own ego, and realize what a beautiful piece of television it was,’ she said.

‘All the scenes I wasn’t in were so much fun to see and experience for the very first time.’