Selma Blair exits ‘Dancing With the Stars’ due to MS complications: ‘I can’t go on’
Tuesday
Dec 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2012 at 2:20 AM
Proudly ‘celebrating the power of the vote’ – then with no idea how she’s going to vote
SOCIAL
At her first national final on Wednesday night, Selma Blair didn’t know how she was going to vote — and she hasn’t since.
The 23-year-old aspiring actress was supposed to be part of the cast of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars (DWTS) in Hollywood, Calif., where she’s been the first African-American woman to be a professional dancer for 35 years.
But after suffering an incident of sepsis that left her brain with an inflamed mass, Blair’s medical condition has worsened, and she’s on the sidelines as the Dancing with the Stars cast competes for a $10 million cash prize.
“I’m on the sideline. I can’t go on,” Blair said during an interview on NBC’s “Today” on Sunday.
Blair, who was born in Detroit before her family moved to Los Angeles, said she was “a dancer who wanted to be on stage” at a young age, before a bout of meningitis forced her to give it up for a few years, according to NBC Los Angeles.
She was back in dance when an MRI revealed the devastating complications, and doctors gave her options — the surgical removal of half of her brain, or the medical transplantation of a special chip inside her skull. Blair wanted the transplant as well as an increased level of hope as she faced such a long journey ahead of her.
“When I found out I couldn’t go on, and they told me it was a good choice, it’s what I hoped for, it’s what I hoped for,” Blair said.
She didn’t know if she’d ever dance again until a few days before the competition when she was wheeled into the hospital for a CT scan. At that point, she realized she wouldn’t be able to participate this season — which would be hard for her to accept for
