Race to Erase MS founder Nancy Davis PHOTO COURTESY OF RACE TO ERASE MS
Ahead of the Race to Erase MS 30th anniversary gala, founder Nancy Davis discusses her own diagnosis, event highlights from the years and the great strides her organization has made in battling multiple sclerosis.
KISS performed at the 2016 Race to Erase MS gala. PHOTO COURTESY OF RACE TO ERASE MS
In 1991, when she was 33 years old and a young mom to three kids, Nancy Davis was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). “It was terrifying,” she says. “I was told I’d never walk life again, and life as I knew it was over.” At the time, there was no known cause, cure or drug on the market for MS—and little hope there ever would be any. “I had so many dreams and hopes,” Davis recalls, “and all of a sudden, they’re telling me the most I’m going to be able to do is operate the remote control on my TV set, and that was awful.”
Davis—a Colorado native who’d moved to California in 1987 and now resides in Los Angeles with her husband and children—sought out second opinions from some of the best doctors and hospitals in the country. While they all confirmed the diagnosis, a light bulb went off when she realized that everyone was unknowingly doing identical research. “And so, I figured if I could put the best to work together as a team, to never duplicate but to constantly communicate and channel whatever funds into different areas, then we would have a much better shot of finding a cure in my lifetime,” she says.
Nancy Davis flanked by her daughters Isabella (left) and Mariella Rickel PHOTO COURTESY OF RACE TO ERASE MS
With the goal of eradicating the disease, in 1993, Davis founded the organization Race to Erase MS (erasems.org)—which fundraises for its Center Without Walls research program through an annual gala. The beloved event began as an over-the-top ski weekend in Aspen, and after a few years in Vail and Vegas, it became a starry spring gala in L.A.—complete with an extensive silent auction during the cocktail hour, a dinner with a live auction and top-notch entertainment. The hip gala has featured fashion shows from Tommy Hilfiger and Alice + Olivia, celebrity honorees like Jack Osbourne and Selma Blair, and performers from Steven Tyler to Elton John—the latter making for one of Davis’ most memorable years. “It was only [John] on a piano, and he was only going to do three songs, and he ended up doing like 12 songs, and it was magic,” she says.
For this year’s 30th anniversary gala on Friday, June 2, at the Fairmont Century Plaza, Davis is bringing back lively favorite Flo Rida. “You can’t not have the absolute best time when Flo Rida’s performing,” she says. “He gets up on that stage, and he gets everybody up on the stage with him.” The event will also include a fashion show by Jane Siskin’s Cinq à Sept—which is doing a corresponding T-shirt collaboration—an auction with spectacular items like an Aston Martin, and 30 honorees who’ll be recognized for their longtime support.
Over the years, Race to Erase MS has raised more than $50 million for multiple sclerosis research—to great effect. “Where there were no drugs on the market, there’s FDA approval and 25 drugs now, which is pretty much a miracle,” says Davis, whose organization conducted the pilot studies for 18 of them. “For the person being diagnosed today, there’s so much incredible hope.” Now that they can stop the disease from getting worse, research is focused on helping chronic sufferers with debilitation, but Davis is thrilled that MS is not the unpopular, untreatable disease it once was. She notes, “Every year we get FDA approval and another drug, and all these charity events that we do every single year have really paid off in such a wonderful way to help people who suffer from MS improve their quality of life.”
Honoree Selma Blair and Kris Jenner at the 2019 gala. PHOTO COURTESY OF RACE TO ERASE MS
In 2018, Davis and her son Jason, who struggled with addiction, decided to apply the same model of convening doctors for research and founded Cure Addiction Now (cureaddictionnow.org). While he sadly passed away in 2020, Davis is committed to finding medications that stop the cravings in people’s brains, and to making it easier and more affordable for them to detox off drugs.
Fortunately, Davis’ fate turned out to be much different than doctors originally predicted. “I’m probably the luckiest girl that lives with MS, I really am,” says the philanthropist, jewelry and clothing designer, and author. “Whatever they told me the day I was diagnosed, it has not come true.” What would she say to that 33-year-old woman who was just told she’d never walk again if she could go back in time? “I would like to tell her that she wasn’t crazy,” Davis says. “And that her dream of finding a cure for MS was not just a dream—and it happened.”
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