Coming off several weeks of threatening to reveal the name of Jane Doe in the Cornell University case, Megyn Kelly has found herself at the center of a new torrent of backlash after focusing her culture warrior outrage on another woman in the news: actor Christina Applegate.

This backlash has been amplified by Janice Dean, a self-described former close friend of Kelly’s who once worked with her as a Fox News broadcaster. Dean went on social media Wednesday night to denounce Kelly as a “mean girl” for criticizing Applegate after the Emmy winner revealed this week that she had been wrongly diagnosed in 2021 with multiple sclerosis.

The 54-year-old “Anchorman” star tearfully revealed on "MeSsY," her MS-related podcast, that her doctors told her that she didn’t have the neurological condition after all, according to the New York Times. Rather than see this as good news, Applegate said she felt she was “back to square one” in trying to figure out why she has sometimes debilitating numbness, pain, balance, mobility and gastrointestinal problems.

But on her eponymous YouTube channel and podcast Kelly said that Applegate wasn’t crying because she has been plunged back into a terrifying new uncertainty about her health — but because she can no longer “be the face of MS,” as The Sun reported.

“I cannot keep up, you guys,” Kelly said, putting Applegate into a category of Hollywood celebrities who she said have become known and built “cottage industries” around speaking up about their health challenges.

Kelly said Applegate has made numerous statements about having MS over the years and co-hosts her podcast with “The Sopranos” star Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS. Kelly questioned the way Applegate was now telling fans that “she doesn’t actually have it. This has all been a wild goose chase.”

“She has no idea what she actually has,” Kelly continued, “and I just think this is like the problem with celebrities, wanting to lean into their health problems, and ‘now I will be the face of MS.’”

“She’s crying now because I guess she no longer gets to be the face of this disease,” Kelly added, “and as she says, she’s back to ‘square one.’ She’s made like a cottage industry of talking about her MS.”

After Kelly’s comments started to make headlines, Dean took to X and Instagram to rip into the conservative pundit, in part because she, too, has multiple sclerosis. The former co-host and weather anchor on “Fox & Friends” was diagnosed in 2005 and announced in July she was leaving the network, due to the worsening symptoms of her condition.

“I’ve kept my mouth shut for a long time about mean girl Megyn Kelly,” Janice began her statement.

“Her comments about Christiana Applegate are disgusting,” Dean wrote. “Having MS for over 20 years, she knows how long it took for doctors to diagnose me. I think Christina is brave for telling the truth and I’m grateful she became a voice for so many of us. I will have much more to say about this when I’m well enough. I’ve been sick for several weeks in and out of the hospital but when I’m well enough I will comment more.”

Dean later added: “Oh yeah. In case you don’t know, I have multiple sclerosis and I am one of those loser people Megyn Kelly refers to as wanting to talk about my diagnosis to help others.”

Dean also responded to someone on X who agreed with Kelly that Applegate had pushed to become known as a prominent spokesperson for MS.

“So what?” Dean said. “She listened to doctors and decided to speak out about an illness she believed she had. She brought awareness to the disease and now she’s being honest and saying she was misdiagnosed which is hugely brave. Now she’s got a mean lady who has millions of followers trashing her.”

In the aftermath of Applegate’s announcement, a number of experts in multiple sclerosis have gone public to say that what the actor said about a misdiagnosis tracks and that her experience is more common than many people realize, CBS News and the New York Times reported.

In a follow-up episode on Applegate’s "MeSsy" podcast, Marwa Kaisey, an associate professor at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center department of neurology, said that almost 1 in 5 people who are told they have multiple sclerosis “didn’t actually have it,” CBS reported.

In an interview with the New York Times, Bruce Bebo, the chief research and medical affairs officer at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, agreed that misdiagnosis is a significant problem. He also said it goes both ways: Some people who don’t have MS are wrongly told they have it, and many people who do have it are initially told they don’t.

There is no single test to confirm MS, which is a disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath that surrounds nerves, causing progressive damage, the New York Times reported. The symptoms often wax and wane, with flareups and periods of remission. Symptoms also vary from person to person and it can progress in different ways, the New York Times also said.

Dr. Josef Gutman, the director of New York University’s Long Island Comprehensive MS Care Center, told CBS News that the wide spectrum of symptoms that can be attributed to multiple sclerosis makes the condition difficult to diagnosis.

“It’s important to keep in mind that those symptoms are not necessarily specific in a lot of ways. It’s sort of the story, combined with MRI imaging, combined with other markers like spinal fluid, that help us make the MS diagnosis,” Gutman told CBS News. “It’s not like diabetes, where there’s one blood test and if it’s above this number, it’s diabetes, if it’s below this number, it isn’t. There’s a lot of things going into the diagnosis.”

In response to Dean’s post, people went on her X and Instagram posts to thank her for speaking out against Kelly. They agreed that Kelly’s comments were “out of line” and “disgusting,” while many also expressed support for Applegate in her current situation.

“Those of us with MS have sympathy for Applegate (because) MS sucks and then to find you don’t have it?” one person said on Dean’s Instagram account. “Emotionally devastating (because) you’ve spent years wrapping her mind around how to live with this disease.”

“Even if Christina Applegate doesn’t have MS, she clearly has something, so why can’t concern be shown for that?!” someone else said. “And how about empathy for the suffering she clearly endures?”

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