Selma Blair leaves Dancing With the Stars judges in tears with powerful first performance
Selma Blair brings Dancing With the Stars fans to tears with her performance after being diagnosed with MS.(Disney+/Dancing With The Stars)
Selma Blair brought judges and fans of Dancing With the Stars to tears with her debut performance on the show.
The 90s icon opened up about her Multiple Sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, which she received in 2018, as she joined the new season of the dancing competition on Monday (19 September).
Ahead of her debut performance she explained: “MS is an autoimmune disease; with my form of MS I have real movement and balance issues… I hope that by doing this show I could show people with disabilities the joy that can be found in ways you never expected.
“I want to perform in a way that uses my body… this can only help me in the long run.”
She told judges and viewers alike: “Don’t underestimate me.”
Blair and her professional dancer Sasha Farber performed to “The Time of My Life by David Cook”, in a routine that brought judges to tears and saw her sail through to the next round of the show.
The new season of Dancing With the Stars also includes Drag Race star Shangela, along with singer Jordin Sparks, comedian Wayne Brady, and TikToker Charli D’Amelio.
Selma Blair previously explained that doctors warned her not to go public with her diagnosis of MS, which can affect the brain and spinal cord causing issues with movement, balance, and vision.
“My doctors urged me not to go public,” she said in an excerpt of her memoir Mean Baby published in the Guardian.
“They said people wouldn’t understand my diagnosis. They worried I wouldn’t get work. They said the disease might not progress beyond what I’d already experienced, so why share it?”
She explained, however, that after attending the Vanity Fair Oscars party in 2019 with a mobility aid, she received an outpouring of support.
“The next morning, the headlines talked about how brave I was. They called me a warrior,” she wrote.
“In that moment, I didn’t feel like a warrior, or any kind of hero. But I did feel a new sense of peace and purpose. I felt, for maybe the first time in my life, fully and completely myself.”
