Gaslit by my symptoms: how Selma Blair reclaimed her wellbeing and skin health
After years of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis, the Legally Blonde star finally has a name for the condition that has plagued her all her life. Despite walking with a stick and suffering from early menopause, she’s reclaiming her health and has an inspirational skincare collaboration to shout about
It’s easy to assume that Hollywood stars have a gilded life. But Selma Blair, who made her name as bookish, dark-haired law student Vivian to Reese Witherspoon’s chirpy Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, has had health battles with more plot twists than a screenwriter could conjure.
Her health, specifically her skin health, is the reason we are meeting in a London hotel suite. Blair – her trademark black bob now a striking blonde – is cuddled up on a sofa with Scout, her assistance dog. The placid golden Labrador is flanked on the other side by GP Dr Ginni Mansberg, founder of ESK Skincare. The two humans have collaborated on a night repair cream, ESK Ultimate A Gold. Blair is now an investor and they’ve become firm friends, despite living at opposite ends of the earth.
Selma Blair with her assistance dog Scout, ESK founder Dr Ginni Mansberg and Get The Gloss Editorial Director Victoria Woodhall; the new ESK collab, Ultimate A Gold
Mansberg has just flown in from Sydney, where she runs a GP practice, and is a regular on Australian morning TV, while Blair and Scout have just arrived from New York – cue a discussion about doggy toilets in airports and the fact that Scout is a champion at holding it in for seven hours. “He’s so good,” says Blair, nuzzling his head. He travels everywhere with her, helping with balance and compromised vision, and reminding her to take her medication for multiple sclerosis, the autoimmune condition with which she was diagnosed in 2018, aged 46.
How did she feel when she found out? “I was shocked, but also really relieved and confused. I still had to piece together that this was probably a lot of what had been ailing me my whole life.”
She’s now 53, and her relatively late diagnosis came after a series of what she calls “missed cues” since childhood, when she was often unwell, tired and feverish. Because she has the relapsing-remitting form of MS, where symptoms come and go (as opposed to the chronic progressive form), people, herself included, wondered if she was making it up.
“I was a really different person growing up. I really didn’t trust myself. I didn’t know why I was making these things up that felt so real. I mean, I could cry thinking about it, because I was just a little kid. I was made fun of a lot in school, you know, ‘Oh, someone’s dragging her leg, but a week later they’re like, oh, it’s suddenly fine’.”
Selma Blair with her assistance dog, Scout, and on the cover of Vogue in May 2023 (Images: Instagram @selmablair)
As a tween growing up in Michigan, she always had her nose in the Physician’s Desk Reference book, trying to work out what was wrong with her “because I was put on so much medicine at a young age for all these things that ailed me, or didn’t ail me. I was 12!”
One of her many ailments was optic neuritis, where the optic nerve becomes inflamed, and which damaged her peripheral vision, which she had at age seven and again at 23. “Optic neuritis is an absolute classic [symptom of MS],” chips in Mansberg. “It should raise the red flag.”
A missed cue – twice. She was also twice told she had depression; first as a child, when she was medicated with tricyclic antidepressants (she also self-medicated with alcohol, taking her first drink at age seven). And then, after the birth of her son Arthur in 2011, she was told she had postnatal depression. “When I had my baby, it got really bad. It’s very natural for MS to go into remission during pregnancy. And then once you do give birth, it can really hit the motherlode, with the exhaustion and all. So I felt really poorly, and then it was misdiagnosed as postpartum depression.”
Mansberg describes it perfectly when she says that Blair was “gaslit by her symptoms.”
“I’m so glad now that I know it’s not just in my head,” adds Blair. But still, diagnosis was a few years away and when her skin “fell apart” as a new mother, it seemed like just another random symptom in a long list and Blair resigned herself to the fact that she was “just an odd duck.”
She knows now that it was no coincidence. Her immune system was compromised, “and the skin is your biggest immune system organ,” says Mansberg. “Pretty much 100 per cent of people with autoimmune disease have sensitive skin. What we have found out is that it’s bi-directional – not only does having an autoimmune disease cause inflammation in the skin, but having an impaired skin barrier sets off your autoimmune disease. Little did we know that while Selma was battling these two things simultaneously, her MS would flare and her skin would flare.”
Selma Blair with her son Arthur Saint Bleick as a child. After his birth, she suffered from skin flare-ups
All the more reason, says Mansberg, for those with autoimmune conditions to look after their skin barrier. Blair however, was doing the opposite, opting for heavy peels and aggressive facials to blast the angry red welts. “I go to skin doctors, and the more we do, the worse it got”. Then one day her aesthetician, who happened to be Australian, pulled the ESK Calming Cleanse out of her personal washbag. “She said, ‘There’s nothing here we can do for you, but here’s my bag. Try this and stop everything you’re doing, stop your makeup, stop everything, and see what happens.’”
The results were incredible. “The burning started to go away. And then I could smile without new crusts appearing.” Blair sought out other ESK products. “It did take having to just stop breaking my barrier and heal the barrier. And coincidentally, I was also healing from MS much better at that same time.” Eventually, Blair met Mansberg in New York and they began hatching plans to work together.
After her eventual diagnosis of MS, she underwent a radical stem cell treatment that was unsuccessful and led to a relapse and an induced menopause at 46. But she is upbeat and sees it as “all part of the journey” as it led her to another maintenance treatment that has kept her relapse-free for two years. The medical menopause came on suddenly and was shocking because there was no gradual hormone decline and her own mother “didn’t go through menopause until her sixties”, so Blair thought she had time on her side.
“It was really rapid ageing for me – rapid ageing with my stamina, with my skin,” she says. She now takes hormone replacement therapy and, because her skin is in a good place, she is able to use age-proofing actives such as vitamin A.
Then, because she’s low maintenance, and her followers who have disabilities don’t have the time, the budget or in some cases the dexterity for a multi-step regime, she challenged Dr Mansberg to create a one-and-done night cream that addressed multiple issues, pigmentation, wrinkles, hydration, and skin barrier repair in one hit. The result is Ultimate A Gold, which launches this year, and there’s more to come from the collab in 2026.
“It was the best day of my life when Selma got in touch,” says Dr Mansberg. As for Blair: ‘I’m loving that I have a great skincare product for me, and a ‘family’ that has such brilliant minds. Dr Ginny cares about her clients, me being one of them.”
Alongside great skincare, here are six ways that actress Selma Blair protects and supercharges her wellbeing…
Selma Blair’s wellness wins
1. My English Labrador Scout, the service dog
Selma Blair with dog (Images: Instagram @selmablair)
“Scout comes everywhere with me. He really does help me a lot. He also keeps my nervous system [balanced] as it had gone really out of whack for so many years. If I’m taking care of Scout, I’m taking care of myself too; I’m reminded to feed him, go to the bathroom, get out for walks, all the simple things that are good for me too.
“He reminds me to take medicine, as I do get a bit distracted. If there’s a lot going on around me, he’ll [go] ‘nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble’. If I don’t pay attention, he’ll keep putting his paw on me or refuse to leave me. He gets on my lap until I’m like, ‘Oh, wait, he’s telling me something.’
“Some of my peripheral vision is gone, so he’s also a ‘boundary dog’ for me, to help me not fall off kerbs or into pools and things like that. Although the first day I had him, he fell into my pool, and I realised he couldn’t swim, so I had to jump into the pool to get him. We had a really good laugh, and I realised, well, we got through that, we’re gonna be okay.”
2. Reading biographies to calm the mind
Blair is an avid reader and is currently reading about Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president
“Reading a book really helps my wellness, because I’m not scrolling. When I’m really out of sorts, if I can get into a book, I seem to take away a lot of my extra brain clutter. I used to read three books a day and really read them, but I got out of the habit because my vision wasn’t so great for a while. Now it is [better], especially if I remember to wear my readers.
“I like any biographies. Right now I’m reading one about the first woman who ran for president, Victoria Woodhull. [The Improbable Victoria Woodhull, Suffrage, Free Love and The First Woman to Run for President, Eden Collinsworth]. I look quite like her too, so now I’m like, ‘oh, shoot, I should buy the rights and play this woman.’ I don’t know if I’m much longer in the tooth than she was, but she’s quite remarkable.”
3. Walking in nature with my son and dog
Getting out and walking in nature with her son and Scout the dog is really important to the actress (Image: Instagram @selmablair)
“Getting out and walking, is important to me [there’s a link between vitamin D deficiency and MS], preferably with my son, not saying anything, just walking. I love being with him. He’s afraid I’ll talk to him and get into some ‘subjects’ and I’ve heard that walking and talking is a much more stress-free way of dealing with things.
“Scout helps with counterbalance for walking. My mobility has improved so much, but there are some days that I use a walking stick to alert people if my balance is off, and to help me. But he’s a good counterbalance and good company.”
4. Transcendental Meditation twice a day
(Images: Instagram @selmablair)
“Meditation is something that I’ve noticed makes a huge difference in my patience level – with myself and with other people. Lately, I’ve done about 10 minutes twice a day, but 20 minutes really would be ideal.
“Olivia Newton-John (yes, I dropped a wonderful name!) was a friend of mine, and she would [always] try and get me into meditation. She had a peace labyrinth garden and all these things, but I couldn’t focus to save my life. I’m like, ‘this is lovely, but it’s just a bunch of stones’.
“But there’s something about Transcendental Meditation – you learn it with a guide, one-on-one and you get your own chant. I was taught that there wasn’t a wrong way; you just need to set aside that time. I had to just trust the process and not have an expectation. Something in it clicked, and it just really calmed me.”
5. Riding my horse, Mr Nibbles, 3 times a week
Selma Blair with her horse Mr Nibbles (Images: Instagram @selmablair)
“I have to get on my horse – there’s something about the movement that actually jogs my brain, literally. It’s getting oxygen moving in my brain. It gives me a more competitive spirit that I really do need, because I’ve ‘gentled’ quite a bit. I’d do it every day if I could. I drop my kid off at school, drive the hour to the barn, and then I ride for an hour, and then you walk your horse after. It can really tire me out sometimes, so then I have to rest afterwards. I can’t do it every day, or else I wouldn’t get enough done. But I am increasing my stamina.”
6. Training with boxer Freddie Roach and a good breakfast
Blair with her boxing trainer Freddie Roach (Image: Instagram @selmablair). Her favourite breakfast is scrambled eggs and olive oil
“I work out with Freddie Roach, a boxer and a trainer for [world boxing champion] Manny Pacquiao. That kind of movement is really good for the brain, for MS and Parkinson’s and all those neurodegenerative brain [conditions]. I notice my stamina grows when I do it.
“Eating in the morning is something that I have to force myself to do. I’m naturally not hungry in the morning, but doctors have really gotten on that with me now, [especially] protein in the morning. I’m on the right track now. We have to give my brain plenty of good fats. My favourite breakfast is scrambled eggs with salt and olive oil.”
Selma Blair and Dr Ginni Mansberg have collaborated on Esk Skincare Ultimate A Gold, £83, shop now
