Selma Blair made a striking admission about her complicated history with alcohol in an interview recorded before the actress became embroiled in her recent airport controversy.
Speaking on “The Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show,” the “Cruel Intentions” star explained that alcohol once became a way of managing unexplained headaches, anxiety and nerve pain long before she understood that multiple sclerosis was behind many of her symptoms.
Blair also made clear that drinking is no longer an option for her, describing alcohol as something she knows does not work as “medicine” for her body or emotional health.
The timing gives the comments additional weight following Blair’s October 11 flight incident, although there is no evidence that alcohol played a role in what happened aboard the aircraft.
Selma Blair Says Alcohol Once Helped Numb Her Physical Pain
During the interview, Blair reflected on turning toward alcohol when she was extremely young and dealing with physical symptoms she did not understand at the time.
“It’s wild the times that I’ve gone, even as a very young girl, to alcohol,” she explained during the conversation, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Blair said she did not gravitate toward drugs and had difficulty tolerating opioid medication. Alcohol, however, felt different because it temporarily quieted what was happening in her body.
She recalled using it for headaches and to calm herself before discovering that it was the “one thing that took away my nerve pain.”
The actress has previously said she believes symptoms of MS may have been present for years before her eventual diagnosis in 2018.
The Actress Described How Drinking Quickly Became A Dangerous Cycle
The temporary relief came with a serious downside. Blair told McCarthy that one drink did not necessarily satisfy the urge for relief. She described the progression from drinking enough to feel calmer to eventually becoming depressed as she consumed more.
According to E! News, Blair recognized that the pattern was never going to take her somewhere healthy.
She also explained that her relationship with drinking was not primarily about partying socially.
Blair said friends sometimes assumed her unsteadiness meant she had been drinking, when she would actually save alcohol for later, once she was home.
The actress described using it to help herself sleep, only to wake up hours later feeling emotionally worse.
That distinction tracks with what Blair has previously shared about her history. In her 2022 memoir, “Mean Baby,” she wrote extensively about using alcohol for comfort from childhood and struggling with dependence for years.
In an Elle interview, Blair connected her childhood drinking to unexplained pain, anxiety and overwhelming fatigue that she later suspected were related to neurological symptoms.
Selma Blair Says She Knows Drinking Is Something She ‘Cannot Do’
Blair’s comments were equally direct about where alcohol fits into her life now.
She told McCarthy that she does not identify with what she called a “sober sober lifestyle,” explaining that she does not frame her life around Alcoholics Anonymous.
Still, her boundary around drinking sounded firm. “Alcohol is not good medicine for me,” Blair admitted.
She even joked about wishing she were someone who could simply enjoy two glasses of wine, become flirtatious and have fun. Instead, experience taught her that her relationship with alcohol did not work that way.
The actress also discussed the complicated process of managing MS treatment, explaining that medications that help one patient can produce very different results for another.
Blair said she tried several treatments that worked well for other people but made her own condition worse before eventually reaching a relapse-free state.
She also spoke about being diagnosed with pseudobulbar affect, a neurological condition that can cause involuntary emotional expressions such as laughing or crying.
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The Interview Was Recorded Before Blair’s Recent Flight Incident
The timing of Blair’s interview became particularly significant after she was arrested following an October 11 Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York.
McCarthy specifically warned listeners that the conversation had taken place beforehand, stating that she was sending Blair “love, compassion, and support.”
Authorities accused Blair of becoming combative during the flight and later assaulting a Port Authority officer and a nurse after landing.
She pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree assault stemming from the alleged incidents involving the officer and nurse.
As The Blast previously reported, Blair’s representatives pushed back against some early accounts of what happened.
Her team said she experienced a “medical emergency,” stressed that she did not intend to hurt anyone and disputed a claim that she tried to open an aircraft door.
Her attorneys also argued in court that Blair had missed several doses of medication used to control severe neurological symptoms and had suffered a head injury, which they said contributed to confusion.
Nothing in the available reporting establishes that Blair had consumed alcohol before or during the October 2026 flight incident.
Selma Blair’s Earlier Plane Incident Makes Her Admission Especially Striking
The subject nevertheless carries painful history for Blair because another airplane incident a decade earlier did involve alcohol.
In 2016, she was removed from a flight from Cancún to Los Angeles after displaying alarming behavior while traveling with her young son.
Blair later took responsibility, saying she had mixed alcohol with medication and experienced a blackout.
As The Blast previously reported, the actress apologized to passengers and crew after that episode.
Years later, Blair said the humiliation became a major turning point in her relationship with alcohol.
While promoting “Mean Baby” in 2022, she explained that the possibility she could have died on that flight, particularly while traveling as a mother, helped convince her that she needed to stop drinking.
That history makes her comments to McCarthy unusually poignant in hindsight.
Before the latest flight episode became international news, Blair had already sat down and explained in her own words why she once sought comfort from alcohol, how quickly that comfort could become destructive, and why she ultimately learned it could never be a solution to her pain.
