Selma Blair poses with a cane as she covers Town & Country magazine amid her ongoing battle with MS

Two and a half years after revealing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, Selma Blair is covering the May issue of Town & Country — and posing with her walking stick inside the magazine’s pages.

The 48-year-old actress has been candid about her battle with MS since October of 2018, when she first told her Instagram followers that she is ‘disabled,’ and has continued to share details of her health struggles and even brought a cane to 2019’s Vanity Fair Oscar party — all of which she sees as an important way to help others.

‘I’m very comfortable in my body, mostly because I am now making a deeper positive connec­tion with it,’ she says. ‘I am fascinated by this body and this life. I am humbled and pleased to be any inspiration for people.’

Selma’s Town & Country cover is a typical close-up glamour shot, showing the actress in a dramatic pink Prabal Gurung top and a bold David Webb ring.

But her photoshoot inside includes a particular poignant shot, showing Selma in a gorgeous $13,500 Dior dress, a glitzy Cartier (Sur)Naturel necklace, and a $640 Scully & Scully cane with a pink handle that she gently leans on while standing on her tiptoes.

Though it’s certainly a first for a fashion magazine, by now, fans are used to seeing Selma with a cane.

In 2019, she was the talk of the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar party when she bravely showed up with one in hand, just months after she’d revealed her diagnosis.

‘It was a no-brainer, and there was no choice,’ she says now. ‘I hadn’t been on a red carpet for so long, and now I was coming. 

‘I knew, since my diagnosis, people might be watching. I didn’t know if I would be forgotten about and be the last one on the red carpet.’ 

It certainly would have been hard to miss her in her Ralph & Russo gown, pair with a cane she’d had customized to match her outfit, and glamorous makeup.

‘Makeup is not trivial to me,’ she says. If anything moves the needle for me in my life — even before my diagnosis or challenges — it is my gorgeous war paint. 

‘I don’t mind if my muscles get caught at the intersection of a slow brain signal. I just want those words to come from lips covered in Chanel gloss.’ 

Having great friends has also been a help. Sarah Michelle Gellar — whom she’s known since the pair co-starred in 199’s Cruel Intentions — says she and Selma ‘have one of the purest friendships I have ever had.’

‘We’re able to be scared, to feel the highs and lows. Between COVID and her diagnosis, a lot of the barriers that we put up have been broken down,’ she says. 

‘[Before the pandemic,] if she was having a bad day I would come over and crawl into bed with her, and we would lie there for hours and watch HGTV. We didn’t have to talk, and to me, real friendships are when you can sit in silence and know that the other person is there to love and support you. ‘

Despite her health struggles, Selma has continued to keep busy with work, starring in this year’s Far More with Adrian Grenier and appearing in 2020’s After We Collided. 

Later this year, Discovery+ will stream her new documentary, ‘Introducing, Selma Blair,’ which premiered at SXSW in March.

But she also took time to reflect on some of her most memorable and beloved films, including 2001’s Legally Blonde.

‘Legally Blonde is one of those Technicolor Hollywood films that really spans the ages,’ she says.

‘Now we see things with a different lens, and all those things [the movie portrays] are celebrations of the human spirit. It’s dressed up in pink and feathers and glitter, but it’s eye-catching and kind. I love that the world’s more like that.’