For more than 20 years, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair have been each other’s rocks.

It all dates back to Cruel Intentions, when Gellar lobbied the film’s producers to cast Blair as the naïve Cecile. On the set of that film, Gellar “took me under her wing,” Blair has recalled on Instagram. “Today is no different. I am so in love with my angel of a friend… May we all have a friend like this.” Praising her pal on Instagram, Blair revealed that after she was diagnosed with MS Gellar cooked her dinner, tucked her in bed and “loved me up”. “I woke with so much love for [her],” Blair wrote.

The love has continued this week, when the pair journeyed to Disneyland to celebrate Gellar’s birthday. It’s been 20 years since they were last at the theme park on a trip to fete Gellar turning 21. This time, they were accompanied by their children and, in Blair’s case, her wheelchair. Blair uses the mobility aid when she needs it since her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis (MS) in October 2018.

Images of Gellar pushing Blair in the wheelchair went viral, and Blair even posted some on her own Instagram, before being forced to delete them as she doesn’t own the copyright on the picture

“I took [it] down,” Blair wrote on Instagram. “Not because I was ashamed or embarrassed, but because it isn’t my picture. I am not giving up on having some recovery. Or at least getting stabilised. I am oddly grateful for the new insight I have into a chronically unpredictable body. And I found my friends to be more generous and kinder than I could have imagined.”

Blair specifically called out Gellar for making sure that her son “had the best spring break memory with all of us.” 

“I am so grateful to mobility aids to make it possible,” Blair said. “And the best friends to push. And to teach a kid, there is a person in the chair.” She added that she is too weak to use her cane “all around with a kid and bad tailbone… and none of this needed an explanation.”

“I am in a wheelchair,” she added. “Still me though.”

Fans praised Blair for talking so openly about her diagnosis and about her need for a wheelchair. “You are such an inspiration to me,” one wrote. “Friends are everything,” another said. “Stay strong.”

“I am so glad that you were able to go and make the most of it,” another fan shared. “It is hard to accept the wheelchair necessity, but I can make all of the difference… Have had MS now for 23 years… hang in there!” 

In an emotional piece for Stylist, designer Kirsty Stevens wrote about the importance of seeing Blair talk about her MS diagnosis openly. 

“When I first saw pictures of Selma Blair walking the Vanity Fair Red Carpet at the Oscars using her cane, poised and elegant, I was in complete awe,” she wrote. “I have never known of someone so newly diagnosed with MS fully embracing it and not letting it stop them from living their life so fabulously.”

“Selma has brought MS to the attention of the media and has successfully and positively raised MS awareness around the globe, and we can’t thank her enough.” 

Images: Getty