‘Sopranos’ Star On James Gandolfini’s Caring Reaction To Her MS Diagnosis

Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler said James Gandolfini was the first person on the show to learn of her multiple sclerosis diagnosis after she kept her disease a secret from the cast for years.

In an interview with the Work in Progress podcast Thursday, Sigler told host Sophia Bush that she mentioned her MS diagnosis in 2001 to a Sopranos set doctor during a general physical examination for the show. The doctor in turn urged the actor to keep her MS a secret from everyone.

Sigler — who was 20 when she was diagnosed — said since no one in Hollywood was opening up about their medical issues at the time, she decided to follow the set doctor’s advice. “I also wasn’t that symptomatic at the time so it wasn’t something that I thought about or that I had to think about all the time so no, I told no one. I told absolutely no one,” Sigler explained to Bush.

Sigler, of course, starred as Meadow Soprano on all six seasons of the classic HBO series from 1999-2007 opposite Gandolfini and Edie Falco, who played her parents Tony and Carmela Soprano.

Sigler told Bush that she managed to keep her MS diagnosis under wraps until the final season of the series when a combination of things hit her. Not only was Sigler hiding her MS, but she wasn’t telling anyone that she was going through a divorce from her then-husband A.J. Discala.

Sigler said when she broke down in a hair and makeup chair at work when revealing that she was getting divorced, she also wanted to talk with her cast mates about her MS — but ultimately decided against it. Making matters worse, Sigler told Bush, the stress from the divorce led to flare-ups with her MS to the point where she had to interrupt takes on the set.

At that point, Sigler’s screen father sensed that there was something more than the divorce that was troubling her.

“Jim Gandolfini pulled me aside and said, ‘What’s going on? I can see that something’s happening.’ I felt tears welling up in my eyes,” Sigler recalled for the Work in Progress host. “He was the most loving, gentle presence. There are not enough words to describe him.”

At that point, Sigler realized she had to tell Gandolfini about her MS.

“I said, ‘I’m so f—-ing scared and I don’t know what to do,’” Sigler recalled for Bush. “I remember him putting his big paw on my shoulder and he’s like, ‘Whatever you need — I’m not gonna tell anyone — but whatever you need, you let me know. We never talked about it again.”

Gandolfini, sadly, died in 2013 at age 51.

Sigler Wasn’t The Only ‘Sopranos’ Star Hiding A Frightening Medical Diagnosis

Jamie-Lynn Sigler didn’t reveal her MS diagnosis until 2016, and in recent years she’s been very open about how she copes with the disease.

Sigler told Sophia Bush on her podcast that about a month after she told James Gandolfini that she had MS, she opened up about her disease to Edie Falco, too, during a Sopranos photo shoot. Sigler said she felt compelled to tell Falco after her screen mother told her about a frightening diagnosis she was dealing with.

“Edie confided in me that she had been fighting breast cancer at the time and she showed me that she’d been wearing a wig,” Sigler told Bush. “I couldn’t believe that I didn’t know and I was looking at her and I saw myself, like, ‘Oh, my God! You just shot this whole season and were fighting cancer and I didn’t know?’ So that was the moment that I told her.”

Sigler isn’t the only Hollywood celebrity to go public with her MS diagnosis. In 2018, Hellboy and Legally Blonde star Selma Blair revealed her battle with the disease, which she chronicled in the 2021 documentary Introducing Selma Blair.

Also in 2021, Married … with Children and Dead to Me star Christina Applegate announced that she was battling MS. In March 2024, Sigler and Applegate launched the MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie-Lynn Sigler podcast to share stories about their living with MS with their listeners.