Sia Reveals She Is on the Autism Spectrum

The singer's announcement comes 2 years after the controversy over her decision to cast Maddie Ziegler as a girl with autism in her movie 'Music'

Sia is sharing news with her fans.

“I’m on the spectrum, and I’m in recovery and whatever — there’s a lot of things," the singer, 47, said on an episode of Rob Has a Podcast, which also featured Carolyn Wiger, finalist on Survivor Season 44.

While she has talked about her sobriety in the past, this is the first time she has mentioned her late autism diagnosis.

“For 45 years, I was like … ‘I’ve got to go put my human suit on,'” said Sia, who married Dan Bernard earlier this month. “And only in the last two years have I become fully, fully myself.”

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave, according to the National Institutes of Health. Although it can be diagnosed at any age, symptoms generally appear in the first 2 years of life.

RELATED: Sia's 2 Kids: Everything She's Said About Her Sons

On the podcast, Sia opened up about his she has been feeling the past few years: “Nobody can ever know and love you when you’re filled with secrets and … living in shame," she said.

“And when we finally sit in a room full of strangers and tell them our deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets, and everybody laughs along with us, and we don’t feel like pieces of trash for the first time in our lives, 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 human beings with hearts and not pretending to be anything.

The announcement comes two years after the "Chandelier" singer was criticized for casting frequent collaborator Maddie Ziegler, who is neurotypical, as a character on the autism spectrum in her movie Music.

RELATED: Nonspeaking Woman with Autism Denied Effective Communication Tools Until Age 18 Now an Education Advocate

After the first trailer for the movie dropped, critics and autism advocacy groups reacted to the one-minute teaser, slamming the decision to have the Dance Moms alum cast in the title role rather than an actor on the autism spectrum.

Sia defended the film on Twitter at the time.

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