{"id":372631,"date":"2026-01-16T04:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372631\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T04:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:40:09","slug":"jamie-lynn-sigler-says-every-character-i-play-has-ms-whether-we-talk-about-it-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372631\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie-Lynn Sigler says \u2018every character I play has MS, whether we talk about it or not\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jamie-Lynn Sigler<\/a> is opening up about playing TV or movie characters with multiple sclerosis<\/a>, more than two decades after she was diagnosed with the disease.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old actor plays a doctor with the chronic illness on Thursday\u2019s episode of the hit medical show, Grey\u2019s Anatomy, <\/a>marking the first time Sigler will portray a character with the same disease she was diagnosed with in 2002. As urologist Dr Laura Kaplan, Sigler\u2019s character navigates her MS diagnosis, while assisting fan-favourite Dr Richard Webber (portrayed by James Pickens Jr) after it\u2019s been revealed that he has prostate cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Independent after working on the long-running show, Sigler was adamant that every character she plays in the future will have MS \u2013 even if it\u2019s unspecified. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have MS. So every character I play has MS, whether we talk about it or not,\u201d she explained. \u201cSo that\u2019s up to the creators and the creatives on whatever project I\u2019m working on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut anytime you see me on screen, the character has MS,\u201d she concluded. <\/p>\n

MS<\/a> is a disease that causes the breakdown of the protective covering of nerves, as noted by the Mayo Clinic<\/a>. Symptoms can include numbness, weakness, trouble walking, vision changes, lack of coordination, and fatigue. <\/p>\n

\"\u2018I<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

\u2018I have MS. So every character I play has MS, whether we talk about it or not,\u2019 Sigler told \u2018The Independent\u2019 (ABC)<\/p>\n

Sigler was diagnosed with MS in 2002, when she was just 20 years old. At the time, she was still filming the hit show The Sopranos, where she played Meadow, the daughter of mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). However, she chose to keep her diagnosis private until 2016, well after the show had finished filming.<\/p>\n

The actor previously said she was able to hide her illness for so long by lying about what caused her symptoms<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt became this long series of lies. \u2018I have a back issue; I must\u2019ve tweaked my ankle,\u2019\u201d she said during a 2024 episode of her and Christina Applegate’s MeSsy podcast. \u201cI got away with it as long as I could until people would be like, \u2018Are you limping? Are you okay?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was brushing it off because I just didn\u2019t know what that would mean for me to say it out loud and have everybody know,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019ll probably get fired. Who would want me?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Jamie-Lynn<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Jamie-Lynn Sigler, pictured here in June 2025, spoke to ‘The Independent’ ahead of her guest starring role on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (Getty)<\/p>\n

Now, 10 years after revealing her diagnosis, she\u2019s grateful to portray a character with MS, mirroring her own life experience. She said that while she\u2019s wanted to be on Grey\u2019s Anatomy since it first aired in 2005, it was worth the wait to be able to play Dr Kaplan, a character who resonated deeply with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think her honouring and talking about the devastation that came with receiving such a diagnosis \u2013 her life and career could be over because of it \u2013 [and] allowing herself to sort of sit in those feelings and those emotions, and then just saying, \u2018Okay, this is the body that I\u2019m in. How do I keep moving forward and how do I still do what I love?\u2019 That\u2019s, I think, the real message of Dr Kaplan. And I think that’s the real message of me,\u201d Sigler told The Independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was just a moment for me to honour my journey and what I’ve been through and what I’ve overcome and continue to overcome on a daily basis,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave me a lot in my career, personally, to play this role.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-372631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}