Jamie-Lynn Sigler is getting candid about the real reason she fled Hollywood for Texas.
In a recent interview with Us Weekly, the 44-year-old actress shared why she and her husband chose to move their family from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas in 2021.
“We needed a change. When I moved here, I started using a cane once in a while because I didn’t feel like I was being watched,” she shared. “Here, it was like, ‘I’m just Beau and Jack’s mom at the baseball field.'”
The actress and her husband, Cutter Dykstra, tied the knot in January 2016. Throughout their relationship, the couple have welcomed two sons, Beau, 12, and Jack, 8.
JAMIE-LYNN SIGLER ‘ALMOST DIED’ ONE YEAR AGO AFTER SURGERY COMPLICATIONS AMID MS BATTLE
Around the time she got married, the actress revealed she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis she had been keeping a secret for 14 years.
She was diagnosed with the progressive disease right before filming on the fourth season of “The Sopranos” began, when she was 20 years old.
“I was always acting. I had no idea what authenticity felt like,” Sigler said about keeping the diagnosis a secret. “Everything was a lie and for show. I didn’t even know who I was. All these secrets had piled up, and I was suffocating. I was constantly in fight or flight and survival mode. I’m sure that it contributed to a lot of the flare-ups I experienced.”
A few years after opening up about her diagnosis, Sigler started a podcast called “MeSsy,” with actress Christina Applegate, who revealed her MS diagnosis in 2021.
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The two first connected after Lance Bass told Applegate to reach out to Sigler after receiving her diagnosis. Sigler told People in a joint interview with Applegate in March 2024, that when she heard from the “Dead To Me” star she “wanted to give her tools and things that I’ve learned that have helped me.”
“We have each other and that’s helped us so much,” Applegate said. “We would talk on the phone for two hours, and we’d be laughing and crying and we were like, ‘This is helping us. Let’s record this. Let’s do it.'”
Sigler is now gearing up to release her memoir, “And So It Is….: A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope,” which will follow her journey as a child actress, motherhood and living with her illness.
She told Us Weekly that she “never wanted to write a book,” and had been “approached after I came out about my MS,” but turned down the opportunity. She credits Applegate’s attitude and openness about everything that comes with the disease as part of the reason why she finally “felt ready” now.
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Her memoir will be available for purchase in May 2026.
