Emma Caulfield, known for portraying Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and Dotti on WandaVision, has revealed she has multiple sclerosis.
“Once upon a time, I had zero health problems,” Caulfield told Vanity Fair. “I woke up one morning and the left side of my face felt like there were a million ants crawling on it. That feeling when you’ve sat in a position too long? … The feeling’s gone and it’s coming back like a rush of blood.”
Caulfield recalls she went to her acupuncturist who suggested she might have Bell’s Palsy, which is characterized by half of the face dropping due to muscle weakness. She would get more tests done and after the results of an MRI, her doctor confirmed she had MS.
“It was like an out-of-body experience,” she said about her reaction following her MS diagnosis. “I’m like, ‘No, that’s not possible.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ [The doctor] was very matter of fact about it…. It was literally a kind of nightmare.”
Caulfield also revealed that her father had MS, but that wasn’t the cause of his death. The actor also said she had initially not revealed her diagnosis as she “didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to not hire me.” Caulfield said she filmed WandaVision while experiencing in silence the effects of MS. She added that she would be reprising her role on the Disney+ series Agatha: Coven of Chaos, but this time, she has notified everyone “that needs to be notified.”
