Christina Applegate tears up as she gets a surprise message from Below Deck's Captain Lee on The Kelly Clarkson Show: 'I love him so much'

Christina Applegate got emotional after getting a surprise message from her favorite reality TV star - Below Deck's Captain Lee Rosbach - on The Kelly Clarkson Show. 

The actress, 51 - who's been candid about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis - told Kelly that she's been entertaining herself by watching a lot of reality TV, and that Below Deck is her favorite.

Kelly then told her she had a little surprise, as she played her a message of support from Captain Lee, which made Applegate shed tears and say 'I love him so much.' 

'I have slipped into the DMs of certain crew members who are now my friends. I'm like an uber-weirdo fan,' she told Kelly, right before the big surprise. 

Captain Lee then appeared on the screen: 'Christina, how you doing? Captain Lee here from Below Deck. I just want to say thank you for being such a big fan and I want to encourage you to stay strong,' he said.  

'And remember that a good sailor never learned a damn thing in calm seas, so I know you're going to navigate these waters just fine.'

He went on: 'And if you decide you want to set sail again, you just let me know, because we have a deck chair with your name written all over it,' he added. 

The Captain wrapped up his message saying, 'If you'd like to DM me sometime and just chat, I'm here. Take care, kiddo.'

Applegate appeared touched by the message and teared up. 

'Aw, I love my Lee. Oh my god, I have tears in my eyes, I'm not kidding. I literally have tears in my eyes, I love him so much,' she expressed. 

She also revealed that Lee's costar Kate Chastain also had him record a video for her a couple months ago, and said it was 'very sweet' calling Lee 'my angel.'

Elsewhere in the interview Applegate said it 'sucked balls' when her doctor informed her she had multiple sclerosis.

The Dead To Me star described the moment she received the life-changing diagnosis and called shooting the show amid her health battle the 'hardest thing' she had ever done.

Christina learned she officially had MS after she finished working on the Netflix series for the day, but symptoms had already been manifesting in the four years prior to the official diagnosis.

'Shooting the show was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life because I was diagnosed during shooting. I didn't know what was happening to me,' she explained.

Unable to walk, Christina said she needed a wheelchair to get her to the show.

'I couldn't walk, they had to use a wheelchair to get me to set. I was freaking out until someone was like, "You need an MRI" and then I found out on a Monday after work that I had MS, a disease that I’m gonna have for the rest of my life,' she said.

'And then I started thinking about the last four years, and I had very small symptoms.'

 The actress first revealed in August 2021 that she had been diagnosed with MS - a disease in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of nerves, and interrupts the flow of information between the brain and the body.

In November she said that the illness had devastated her mobility, leaving her unable to walk without a cane and said she had put on 40lbs.

Applegate was diagnosed with MS while in production on the final season of her show, Dead to Me, which then took a five month break so that she could begin her treatment.