Jamie Lynn Sigler on Her Painful “Sopranos” Years and ‘Healing’ Memoir (Exclusive)

Eileen FinanThu, April 30, 2026 at 6:59 PM UTC

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Jamie Lynn SiglerCredit: Cristina Fisher

Key Takeaways

Jamie Lynn Sigler reflects on past struggles with an eating disorder, a controlling marriage and hiding her multiple sclerosis in her new memoir And So It Is . . . A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope

The actress, 44, says revisiting her past while writing the book helped her find healing

Her friendship with Christina Applegate and their podcast MeSsy has given her confidence in facing life with MS

During a recent therapy session, Jamie Lynn Sigler's therapist told the actress that she'd just finished reading her new memoir. “She was like, ‘I wish all my patients would write a book. It's so easy to see where we need to go!' ” Sigler recalls with a laugh.

Indeed, Sigler's memoir And So It Is . . . A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope (out May 5) exposes a life in crisis amid her sudden success as a teen on The Sopranos. Behind the scenes, Sigler was struggling with an eating disorder, a hidden multiple sclerosis diagnosis and a crumbling marriage to a controlling husband.

Sigler's new memoirCredit: HarperCollins

“I was so fragile at that time and so confused and so young,” says Sigler, 44, of those years, which were so difficult that to this day, she hasn't been able to re-watch some of the old episodes of the show that made her a star. "It's not about my performance, it was just about the pain that I knew was underneath."

It took a long time before Sigler was ready to write about her past. "I've carried these stories with me for so long, and along with that came a lot of shame," she says. "I always assumed the only story I had to tell of any value was about living with MS. I was always cautious about that being my identity so [writing a book] wasn't what I wanted to do."

When she began to consider it, she started with a letter to her younger self. "It poured out of me, saying, 'Your life is nothing like what you thought, for better or worse, but what if I told you that that girl you thought was not good enough, a loser, unlovable...What if I told you that you love her now, even if you're living in a body with a degenerative disease?' That's when I was like, 'Now I understand my purpose.' "

Revisiting her past for her book was an unexpected "healing journey": “I'm finally in touch with that girl who got lost for so long." she says. "When you can zoom out in your life and look at yourself as the main character in your story, you start to root for yourself. You start to forgive yourself."

Just 16 when she took on the role of Mob boss Tony Soprano's daughter Meadow in 1999, Sigler writes that as a teen, she was plagued by self-doubt and body dysmorphia that fueled an eating disorder. Between the show's pilot and the first season, she dropped to 88 lbs. and got a nose job, which nearly lost her the part.

Sigler with 'Sopranos' co-stars Robert Iler, Edie Falco and James Gandolfini in 2003Credit: Hbo/Kobal/Shutterstock

Her book chronicles the pain — and the mistakes she made — during her years as a young star, including, she writes, her "biggest career mistake": her 2001 pop album Here to Heaven. "I was so green," she says of the project, which gave her limited creative control and tried to market her as a "beta [Britney] Spears," she writes. "There was no one guiding me. I didn't know what I was signing myself to. It was like a freight train that ran away and I couldn't do anything about it."

At the time, she says, it was humiliating. Now "I'm not embarrassed about anything anymore. I have grace for myself."

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Sigler's life took another serious turn when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 20. Her manager at the time, AJ DiScala—whom she later married—advised her to tell no one, not even castmates like James Gandolfini, who was a father figure to her. “I was terrified,” she says. “Even though I was surrounded by wonderful people that could have been there to support me, I was so alone."

Looking back, "I wish I could shake myself then and say, 'Jamie, I wish in that moment you could have broken down and said 'I need help,' because these people were my family. They've known me since I'm a young teen. But I wanted to be professional. From the eating disorder, and the facial change, and the marriage...it was like, 'Oh my God, if they knew I had MS too.' I just felt like such a problem."

When her marriage broke down, DiScala threatened to expose her MS secret. "It was very scary," she says. “I had already felt like I had made so many mistakes already ... it felt like my entire life was imploding. The 10 years I was on The Sopranos were truly the most difficult 10 years of my life.”

As terrifying as his threat was, "I can look back now, and I don't think he would have done it," says Sigler, who adds that she is no longer in touch with DiScala, who is currently serving time in prison for a market manipulation scheme. "I think it was a moment of weakness for him. I think he might've been feeling the same thing, of his life blowing up. I would like to think that he would regret that he did that."

By 2016, she was remarried to a former baseball player Cutter Dykstra (the two share sons Beau, 12, and Jack, 8) — and, in a People story, finally went public with her MS.

"That was my big first step into living honestly and authentically. It felt for a very long time that [opening up] would be scary and unsafe," she says. “It was a huge first step, but it still took me many years to be accepting of it .. .It was almost like, 'Okay, now I'm exposed, now everybody knows, and now everybody's looking even closer.'"

Sigler in 2023 with her husband and sons Beau and JackCredit: Courtesy of Jamie Lynn Sigler

Starting her podcast MeSsy two years ago with friend Christina Applegate, who also lives with MS, freed her to be “unapologetically honest. It changed my life,” she says. "With Christina's help, it was just like, 'Say what's going on with you. There's nothing to be shameful about.' That girl in 2016 who told people she had MS is not that girl that's here now. I'm really no longer hiding anything anymore."

Sigler's podcast with ApplegateCredit: Spotify

In 2024, after she'd already begun writing her memoir, her son Beau faced his own health crisis when he nearly died from an autoimmune disease. It was, she says, “the most traumatic experience of my entire life.”

But it put life, and her book, into perspective.

“I was able to actually see the woman I've become and how radically I opened myself up to help and support, and how I used my voice to advocate for him and our family. I really understood and grasped how loved we are, our family,” says Sigler, who adds that Beau is now "doing great — it's good to see him being a kid again"). “It made me understand I have no idea what's ahead of me. But what I do know is I can get through it.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”