Tragic Details About Christina Applegate's Childhood

Note: This article discusses eating disorders.

Christina Applegate has seen so much success as an adult actor, it's easy to forget she got her start as a child star. Applegate's impressive career began when she appeared in a single episode of the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" in 1972 at just a few months old. Roles in shows like "Charles in Charge," "Heart of the City," and "Married With Children" followed soon after, and the young, talented thespian was well on her way to becoming a household name before she even turned 16.

However, young success didn't mean the "Dead To Me" star's early life was easy. In fact, Applegate (who described herself as a "dark kid" to the Los Angeles Times) found her childhood was plagued with tragedy. From growing up without her dad having a prominent role in her life to experiencing an eating disorder as a teen, this A-lister's start in life was undoubtedly tough.

On an episode of the television show "Who Do You Think You Are?", Christina Applegate got candid about the less than picture perfect relationship she had with her dad Robert Applegate growing up. "My mom and dad split up when I was so young," she shared. "I didn't get to spend the kind of time with him that I think either he or I would have liked," she noted. However, she shared that their relationship grew stronger after Applegate welcomed her daughter Sadie in 2011.

The actor didn't confirm why she spent a lot of time away from her dad during childhood. However, she's admitted Ed O'Neill, who played her dad on "Married With Children," was somewhat of a surrogate father when she was a teen, which may have been inspired by her father's absence. Welcoming O'Neill onto her podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, "MeSsy," in 2024, she shared, "I don't even know how to explain this person. He raised me," jokingly adding, "So if you don't like anything about me, it's his fault. If you do like anything about me, also his fault." Applegate added of their close bond, "Years and years of my life spent with this man, and he's an incredible actor. He's an incredible human being."

Christina Applegate got very candid about what life was like for her growing up in two candid, impassioned tweets posted in 2017. After Applegate was accused of being out of touch while sharing her political opinions, she clapped back on X, formerly known as Twitter. "I grew up [in] an abusive home. Now I make it public. Don't you dare say I don't understand," she wrote. In a second tweet, she shared, "Don't you dare say I don't understand the struggles. We lived on food stamps. Don't you dare say I don't know."

Applegate didn't go into detail about the abuse she was referring to, but elaborated on why she went public with her childhood tragedy while speaking to NPR two years later. "My past is no different and also probably a lot darker than a lot of people's," she said. "So I really do take offense when people think that I've had a silver spoon in my mouth and that I haven't seen the dark side of life."

During Christina Applegate's time on "Married With Children," she experienced disordered eating. She opened up about the difficult time in her young life during a 2024 episode of "MeSsy," which happened long before Applegate made heartbreaking confessions about her adult health issues. "I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years ... It was f**king torture," she confessed, as she candidly recalled a time she was struggling so much with her body image she was too small for size zero clothing. "I was trying on these zeros, and little sliver of my skin was hanging over the side, and I said to my friend, 'Oh God no, I look too fat in these,' and she literally grabbed me and said, 'Stop it; you sound insane!' But, to me, I was enormous."

The star also remembered being put onto a weight loss program by her mom at 15 years old. "I had an eating disorder. I would eat five almonds in a day. And if I had six, I would cry, and I wouldn't want to leave the house. And that stuck with me for years and years and years," she heartbreakingly shared. Applegate's relationship with food was so concerning that her co-workers on "Married With Children" addressed it with her. "It was very scary to everyone on set," she said.

Applegate didn't start to get a handle on her disordered eating until she was an adult, but fortunately, she found a way to have a better relationship with her body and food. However, she explained on the podcast that it's still something she has to monitor. "I need to be aware of it so I don't start falling into bad habits of hurting myself," she said.

If you need help with an eating disorder or know someone who does, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).

Christina Applegate admitted she didn't get to experience a childhood without work and felt the very adult burden of financially supporting her family from a young age. "It was something that I was always doing because I had to for survival," she told Backstage of acting, admitting it didn't start as a passion or no-pressure hobby like it does for many actors. "It's how we were fed. It's all I've ever known," she pointed out.

Her "Married With Children" co-star Katey Sagal also spoke about how she felt a lot of sympathy for Applegate when they were working together because the then teenager didn't get to enjoy the carefree years most young people do. "There was also a part of her that I wished was able to be little, to be an innocent 16-year-old. Because ... she had worked way more than I had worked," Sagal shared on the "MeSsy" podcast. "I always felt very much like Christina grew up very quickly and had a sense of maturity about her that was beyond her years. ... There was part of me that felt like, 'Oh, I want her to be a little girl, too.'"

When Christina Applegate was around 13, she was ready to pull the plug on her acting career. Speaking to Backstage, she recalled, "I said to [my mom], 'I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to go on auditions anymore, I want to be with my friends.' And she said, 'OK, I'll call your agent.'"

But as the then up-and-coming star contemplated her choice, she experienced a panic attack that changed the trajectory of her life. The scary moment caused Applegate to go back on her decision to quit, and she continued acting. "At 13, do you even understand what having a passion for something is? I don't think so. All I knew is that the idea of it going away didn't feel right to me. Didn't sit right," she shared. 

Thankfully, Applegate pushed forward with acting, which allowed her life and career to thrive, but experiencing a panic attack while making such an important decision at a young age must have been terrifying for the teenager. Even more tragically, years later, her enviable career was cut short, as Applegate's MS diagnosis meant she may never act again.