Jamie-Lynn Sigler says she was told not to disclose her multiple sclerosis diagnosis on The Sopranos by the on-set doctor.
By appearing on Sophia Bush’s podcast Work in progressThe actress shared that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 20, a year after being diagnosed with Lyme disease.
Shortly after learning she had MS, she underwent a medical examination and informed the doctor of her latest condition. “He says, ‘Um yeah, I don’t think you should tell anyone about it and I’m not going to let it go.’ [on your medical records]” Sigler remembers.
“I just followed his advice because I wasn’t very symptomatic at the time either, so it wasn’t something I thought about, or had to think about all the time,” he said. -she explains. Sigler then confirmed that she initially “told no one, absolutely no one” on set about her MS diagnosis.
She said that during the show’s final season, she suffered a breakdown in the makeup chair during her divorce from AJ DiScala, which she also didn’t tell the cast and crew about. “Everyone was putting their arms around me and I remember thinking, ‘You can tell them [about the diagnosis].’ And I just couldn’t do it,” Sigler explained.
“I was so scared,” she added. “I had already told them a secret. I couldn’t talk to both of them about it. When the stress of divorce took a toll on her health, affecting her work on set, her TV father came to see her.
“James Gandolfini took me aside and said, ‘What’s going on?’ I see something is happening. I felt tears welling up in my eyes,” Sigler recalled. She revealed her medical issues and told him she was “so scared.”
“I remember he put his big paw on my shoulder and he said to me, ‘Whatever you need – I won’t tell anyone – but whatever you need, you give it to me know,” she remembers.
Sigler didn’t tell any of his other classmates until they did a photo shoot for The Sopranos, where Edie Falco told him she was secretly battling breast cancer. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t know. I was looking at her and I saw myself,” she said. “And that’s when I told her.”
The actress first shared her MS diagnosis publicly in 2016. That year, she said WebMD that a medical professional in the entertainment industry told him that he was “going to act like you never told me you had MS and that you would never tell anyone at work.” You will be fired. No one will hire you. People will judge you. Keep it between us.”
At the time, Falco told the publication: “When I found out she had MS, it broke my heart. I just know how hard it must have been to go through that – as a kid, really – and do it so quietly. She has always been very professional, beyond her age. »
HBO declined to comment on Sigler’s show…
