Christina Applegate Announces Death of Father Robert Applegate

Christina Applegate is mourning the death of her father, Robert Applegate.

The actress, 53, revealed the loss on Tuesday’s episode of her and Jamie Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast, getting emotional as she shared the news that her dad had “passed away a week ago.”

“This is the first time I’ve really cried. I think kind of, like, I wasn’t allowing myself to have that yet,” she told guest JoAnna Garcia Swisher. “Too busy with this, too busy with that.”

Even though her family “knew” that her dad was going to die soon, the Dead to Me star asked, “Is that an excuse for not feeling? Because you know that someone’s gonna go? And you’ve said your goodbyes?”

Sigler agreed that the loss of a loved one is “insanely sad,” telling her co-host, “They are a tether.” The Sopranos alum added, “I felt very untethered. I don’t know the relationship that you had with your dad. But my relationship with my dad—he’s a soulmate, and my mom was my best friend.”

Applegate then shared that while she didn’t spend her childhood with her father, who split from her mother in 1979, she had developed a close relationship with him nonetheless. “I didn’t grow up with my dad,” she said. “He and my mom separated when I was 5 months old, but he’s been in my life ever since. I have two beautiful siblings and an amazing stepmother, but he wasn’t part of the lessons part of life.”