12 Celebrities With Autism Speaking About Life on the Spectrum
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Autism is more common than you might know. About 1 in 36 children has autism spectrum disorder, according to the CDC, and that number has been steadily increasing since the org started collecting data in 2000. More adults are being diagnosed with autism too, studies have found, leading to increased awareness and interest in the disorder. TikToks sharing signs of autism in adults and or little-known symptoms rack up millions of views, and more and more celebrities are starting to come forward with their own autism diagnoses (or sharing that their kids are on the autism spectrum).
Autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, is “a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain,” according to the CDC. There are a wide variety of signs and symptoms, including communication or interaction challenges, restricted or repetitive behaviors, or delays in language, movement, or learning skills. While many people with ASD are diagnosed as children, adults can also be diagnosed (as you’ll see with the celebs ahead).
Because autism exists on a spectrum, people with ASD present symptoms in a wide variety of ways. And with more and more people being diagnosed, awareness and acceptance of ASD is more important than ever, which is why we love that these celebrities are speaking out about their experiences and bucking the lingering stigma that still exists around autism. From pop star Sia to environmental activist Greta Thunberg, keep reading for the stories of celebrities who are sharing their autism experiences.
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Tallulah Willis
Actress Tallulah Willis shared her autism diagnosis in March 2024, in a sweet, low-key Instagram caption accompanying a throwback video with her dad, Bruce Willis. “tell me your autistic without telling me your autistic,” she wrote next to the video, which featured a young Tallulah happily rubbing her dad’s bald head.
Willis expanded on the diagnosis down in the comments. When one fan asked if she was diagnosed as a child, Willis replied, “Actually this is the this is the first time I’ve ever publicly shared my diagnosis. Found out this summer and it’s changed my life.”
Sia
Pop singer Sia opened up about her autism diagnosis on a 2023 Rob Has a Podcast interview, saying, “I’m on the spectrum, and I’m in recovery and whatever — there’s a lot of things.” The “Unstoppable” singer continued, “For 45 years, I was like, ‘I’ve got to go put my human suit on.’ And only in the last two years have I become fully, fully myself.”
Sia faced backlash in 2020 for her depiction of autism in her film Music, where neurotypical actor Maddie Ziegler was cast as a nonverbal autistic character. Sia later apologized and promised that scenes showing Ziegler’s character in restraints while experiencing sensory overstimulation would be removed, Rolling Stone reported.
Discussing her own ASD diagnosis in the 2023 interview, Sia said, “Nobody can ever know and love you when you’re filled with secrets … And when we finally sit in a room full of strangers and tell them our deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets… and we feel seen for the first time in our lives for who we actually are, and then we can start going out into the world and just operating as humans … and not pretending to be anything.”
Greta Thunberg
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg shared her ASD diagnosis on social media back in 2019 as a response to the relentless rolls attacking her actions and appearance. “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go. And then you know you’re winning!” Thunberg wrote on Instagram. “I have Asperger’s syndrome and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And — given the right circumstances — being different is a superpower.”
In a 2021 interview with The Guardian, Thunberg expanded on the experience of getting diagnosed and why she sees autism as a superpower. “A lot of people with autism have a special interest that they can sit and do for an eternity without getting bored. It’s a very useful thing sometimes,” she explained. “Autism can be something that holds you back, but if you get to the right circumstance, if you are around the right people, if you get the adaptations that you need and you feel you have a purpose, then it can be something you can use for good. And I think that I’m doing that now.” She added that getting diagnosed was a relief, saying, “The diagnosis was almost only positive for me. It helped me get the support I needed and made me understand why I was like this.”
Holly Madison
Holly Madison revealed that she’d received a “formal diagnosis” as “someone on the spectrum” in a 2021 interview on the podcast Ahead of the Curve, per People. In 2023, during an appearance on the Talking to Death podcast, the Down the Rabbit Hole author went into depth about her experience with autism. “The doctor told me that I have high executive functioning, which means I can pretty much go about my life and do things ‘normally,’” she said. “I think because I’m more quiet, I’ve only recently learned to make eye contact, I’m often in my own thoughts, things like that, so people take that as offensive. They’re like, ‘Damn, you’re not super interested in me, f— you.’”
Madison explained that she’s “just not on the same social wavelength as other people,” and that she hopes people don’t take things like that personally. Having the diagnosis helps, she says: “I like being able to explain that.”
Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle rose to fame as a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2012 that the opera-singing sensation was diagnosed with autism. Boyle was specifically told she had Asperger’s disorder, a now-obsolete term once used to describe people with “high-functioning” autism who had average or higher-than-average language and intelligence levels, per the Cleveland Clinic. (Asperger’s is now “replaced by the broader diagnosis of ASD,” the Cleveland Clinic says.)
When she shared her diagnosis in 2013 with The Guardian, Boyle said getting diagnosed was “a relief,” though her experience with symptoms as a child led to feelings of isolation. “I struggle with relationships,” she said at the time. “I never know if people are genuine. I would say I have relationship difficulties, communicative difficulties, which lead to a lot of frustration. If people were a bit more patient, that would help.” Boyle was also determined to show that she was more than a diagnosis. “Asperger’s doesn’t define me,” she explained. “It’s a condition that I have to live with and work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself. People will have a greater understanding of who I am and why I do the things I do.”
Dan Aykroyd
A star of the original Ghostbusters franchise, Dan Aykroyd told The Daily Mail in 2013 that his autism actually helped inspire the popular movies. Diagnosed with Asperger’s in the 80s — “when my wife persuaded me to see a doctor” — Aykroyd said manages his ASD pretty well, but it did come with a tendency to get obsessive. “One of my symptoms included my obsession with ghosts and law enforcement — I carry around a police badge with me, for example,” he said. “I became obsessed by Hans Holzer, the greatest ghost hunter ever. That’s when the idea of my film Ghostbusters was born.”
Anthony Hopkins
Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins “didn’t know Asperger’s even existed” until he was diagnosed. “My wife was trying to figure out who she was married to and she read a newsletter from a psychotherapist,” he said of his journey to a diagnosis, in an interview with Desert Sun in 2017. He learned that people with the condition “tend to be creative or severely handicapped,” noting that “I don’t know if that’s true of me, but I know I can never be restful. I tend to multi-task. I decide I’m not going to paint and then I’ll spend 24 hours painting.”
Courtney Love
Courtney Love has only publically spoken about her experience with ASD once, in a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone. “When I talk about being introverted, I was diagnosed autistic,” the Hole frontwoman said, with her initial symptoms including difficulty communicating. “At an early age, I would not speak,” she explained. “Then I simply bloomed. My first visit to a psychiatrist was when I was, like, three. Observational therapy. TM for tots. You name it, I’ve been there.”
Elon Musk
Elon Musk could hardly have chosen a more public outlet to share his ASD diagnosis: he announced it on Saturday Night Live in 2021. “I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL, or at least the first to admit it,” the Tesla and SpaceX founder said in his monologue. (Dan Aykroyd hosted in 2003, but did not share his diagnosis publicly until 2013.)
Musk expanded on his experience with ASD in a 2022 TED Talk, sharing that his childhood was “quite rough” because, for him, “Social cues were not intuitive… I would take something very literally as if the words that were spoken were exactly what they meant. But that turned out to be wrong.” Despite the bullying, Musk found refuge in science and technology. “I found it rewarding to spend all night programming computers, just by myself,” he explained. “Most people don’t enjoy typing strange symbols into a computer by themselves all night. They think that’s not fun. But I really liked it.”
Wentworth Miller
Prison Break star Wentworth Miller took to Instagram in 2021 to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of his autism diagnosis. “This fall marks 1 year since I received my informal autism diagnosis. Preceded by a self-diagnosis. Followed by a formal diagnosis,” he wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post, per CNN. He said the diagnosis came as “a shock” but “not a surprise,” and admitted that he still had a lot to learn.
“I don’t know enough about autism. (There’s a lot to know.),” Miller wrote. “Right now my work looks like evolving my understanding. Re-examining 5 decades of lived experience thru a new lens.” He also noted that it wasn’t his intention to speak for the entire the autistic community, a group that “has historically been talked over… I don’t wish to do additional harm. Only to raise my hand, say ‘I am here.’ Have been (w/o realizing it).”
Daryl Hannah
Blade Runner actress Daryl Hannah was diagnosed with autism as a child and suffered from intense shyness and isolation as a result of the condition. She also repeatedly rocked back and forth, a symptom of ASD, and doctors wanted to put her in a mental institution until her mother intervened. Acting became her escape from the symptoms, she told People in 2013, per Today. “Acting for me was about going to the Land of Oz and meeting the Tin Man,” Hannah explained. “It still is.”
While Hannah said she still deals with the mental and physical symptoms of ASD, she manages them in order to continue her acting career and her environmental activism. “I wasted too much time scared, self-conscious and insecure,” she said. “Life is too short to stress the small things anymore.”
Melanie Sykes
English TV presenter Melanie Sykes described her 2021 autism diagnosis as “truly life changing, or rather, life affirming.” Per The Sun, Sykes shared her diagnosis in an email to subscribers of her magazine The Frank, telling readers the diagnosis came with a “sense of relief,” and that she was celebrating the news. “I now have a deeper understanding of myself, my life, and the things I have endured,” Sykes explained.
Sykes said she sometimes struggled working in TV due to her autism. She’d accidentally respond to a director talking in her earpiece while she was live on air, “as I cannot juggle the person I am interviewing and the person in my ear at the same time.” Her memory had also been “problematic, and remembering pieces to camera could spin me out, resulting in sleepless nights beforehand. There have been many tears of fear and frustration.” With the diagnosis, Sykes said, “so many things made sense.”
