Wandavision star Emma Caulfield Ford has revealed that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis more than 10 years ago, but kept it largely a secret until now.
The 49-year-old opened up about her health struggles for the first time amid fears her illness might impact her ability to take on acting roles.
Caulfield Ford, who is known for her breakout role as Anya in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, told Vanity Fair she was “so tired of not being honest” about her diagnosis.
She said that her symptoms began with the feeling of pins and needles in the left side of her face, followed by a “lack of feeling”.
After seeing her acupuncturist, Caulfield Ford went to a neurologist to get an MRI scan. Both initially thought she might have had Bell’s Palsy, a temporary weakness or paralysis that affects one side of the face.
However, the MRI results found that Caulfield Ford had MS. MS is a lifelong condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord and can result in a wide range of symptoms, including problems with movement, vision, sensation and balance. Caulfield Ford’s late father also suffered from MS, but did not die from it.
The actor described feeling “so overwhelmed and pretty hysterical” when she received the results from her doctor over the phone while in the middle of a photo shoot.
“MS has been around in my sphere for a very, very long time… I knew enough to be like, ‘Oh my god. I’m trying to keep my s*** together and I’ve got to go back to work,’” she said.
“So that was my first experience of keeping everything really quiet and showing up and just doing my job.”
Caulfield Ford kept her diagnosis under wraps, not telling people including her sister, friends, and co-workers. Only her parents and husband, Mark Ford, knew she was living with MS.
However, as heat is a trigger for MS, filming Wandavision in Los Angeles in the summer of 2020 caused Caulfield Ford’s symptoms to flare up and made working in the heat more difficult.
“The heat was unbearable. And I was feeling every inch of that. I got really weak… I was very, very uncomfortable and no one knew. I said nothing. And I paid the price for that.”
Caulfield Ford said she decided to go public with her diagnosis because “I can’t put myself through what I did with Wandavision again”.
“They did nothing wrong… They had no idea what was going on with me,” she clarified of the show’s producers and crew. “They didn’t ask anything of me that was like, ‘I need to call my agent!’… [I told them now] knowing that I shouldn’t be out in this heat at all. And if I am, I need to be taking way more precautions than I am.”
She also said her six-year-old daughter Knightley Lake Ford “changed my perspective” on her illness.
“I know that she has a 30 per cent greater chance of coming down with this, just the luck of the draw for her,” she said. “She’s just started first grade. It got me thinking about her and how full of joy and active she is, and she’s just such a remarkable little creature.
“I’m not actually doing everything I can for her because I have my mouth shut. If I have a platform at all, I should be using it. Even if it affects my ability to get work, it’s better for me to at least be vocal about this and be out there to try to help the MS Foundation and other groups who are doing research.”
Caulfield Ford is among several celebrities who have openly spoken about their diagnoses of MS in recent years.
In 2018, Selma Blair revealed she was suffering from MS. She has since been open about her struggles with her illness and released a 2021 documentary about it called Introducing, Selma Blair.
Last year, Christina Applegate also said she had been diagnosed with the illness, describing it as a “strange journey”.
