19 Celebrities With Autism Speaking About Life on the Spectrum

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.”

Bella Ramsey

It was while filming the first season of The Last of Us that Bella Ramsey, the series’ star, was diagnosed with autism. As the 21-year-old revealed in a 2025 British Vogue profile, a crew member on the show who had an autistic daughter assumed Ramsey had autism, too, which led them to eventually being diagnosed. The diagnosis, Ramsey added, helped them find clarity around things they’d “always wondered” about, like their self-described status as a “weirdo” and “loner” while growing up and other sensory issues.

Ramsey also believes their autism makes them a better actor because they’ve “always been watching and learning from people,” including “having to learn more manually how to socialise and interact with the people.” The diagnosis was “freeing,” they continued. “It enables me to walk through the world with more grace towards myself about not being able to do the easy everyday tasks that everyone else seems to be able to do.”

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 he manages his ASD pretty well, but it comes 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 (somewhat informally) 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.”

More recently, Hopkins spoke about why his wife believes he might have ASD. “I’m obsessed with numbers. I’m obsessed with detail. I like everything in order. And memorizing,” he told The Sunday Times in 2025. However, Hopkins was dismissive of the possible diagnosis, calling himself “cynical” and saying, “It’s just being a human being, full of tangled webs and mysteries and stuff that’s in us. Full of warts and grime and craziness, it’s the human condition. All these labels. I mean, who cares?”

Grimes

Grimes revealed her autism diagnosis in a lengthy post on X in 2025. “Got diagnosed w adhd/ autism this year and realized I’m prob dyslexic which is why I can’t spell at all without spellcheck,” she wrote. The musician noted that, if she’d had the diagnoses as a child, “I would have worked so much less hard, been on drugs, and so many of the weird obsessions and motivations I had would have been seen as pathological and I could have written off certain things that were very hard for me but I’m glad I overcame them.”

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.”

Chris Fischer

Award-winning chef Chris Fischer was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in 2019, and his journey to diagnosis was actually kicked off by his wife, comedian Amy Schumer. “My wife was the person that really initiated the conversation,” Fischer explained on a 2021 episode of the Eating in Isolation podcast. “Through observations of my behavior and my patterns and my communication skills, or lack of communication skills, [and] for the preservation of our relationship, [she] wanted to figure out how to provide the best tools for us to thrive. And so she did some research and poked around online and learned about autism spectrum disorder.”

After taking a few online tests, Fischer eventually connected with professionals who worked with adults with autism, got a clinical diagnosis, and found a “great therapist” he’d been working with ever since. “We spend a lot of time talking about life and how my brain works,” he said. Fischer said one of his symptoms is a fixation on problem solving — which can be a positive or negative. “I sort of spend most of my day identifying problems which are not necessarily a negative thing and then organizing my world around solving them,” he explained. While he says that approach has helped him succeed in the restaurant industry, where his singular focus can help him block out the noise of a busy night in the kitchen and find more efficient ways to improve systems, it can also manifest in a “tendency to obsess [over work,” he noted. “I was all in on work and I had a very imbalanced rest of my life, 

“It’s a complicated subject,” Fischer reflected of ASD and his own diagnosis. “I’m still trying to understand what it means.”

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.”

Tamra Judge

Reality star Tamra Judge revealed her autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in 2024 on an episode of the podcast she cohosts with Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, Two Ts In a Pod. “I just did my first therapy session … Let’s just say I found out something pretty big about myself that I didn’t know,” Judge told Mellencamp before revealing, “I am on the spectrum.”

In a follow-up conversation with People, the Real Housewives of Orange County star recalled that her therapist pointed out a few specific symptoms of autism that Judge displayed. “She told me that many of the things about me — like how I process information, my sensory issues, my social anxiety, my aversion to eye contact with new people, my not wanting to be out of my routine, etc. — were all signs of being on the spectrum.”

Judge also expressed regret at publically revealing her diagnosis so soon, noting that she’d just finished her therapy session when she sat down for the podcast. “I just want to take people through the journey with me as I’ve always done, but I realize now I spoke too soon publicly, and that processing this with such an onslaught of negative comments has been horrible,” Judge said. At the same time, she continued, “I’m finally getting the help I need, and I’m proud of myself for that.”

Kyland Young

Big Brother alum Kyland Young was diagnosed with autism at age 30 after viewers of the show suggested he might have ASD. When multiple medical professionals confirmed the diagnosis, he called it “helpful and relieving,” telling People, “It just was a better understanding of my mind. I’ve always known I was very particular, but then in Big Brother, I found out I was peculiar, and that just means that people can see how particular you are.”

Three years later, Young is using his platform to speak out about the way autism is being portrayed in politics. In April 2025, when health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., claimed that people with autism can’t hold jobs, go on dates, or pay taxes, Young responded by calling the “troublesome, but also not surprising.” He added, “One thing I’ve noticed is that when I’m talking to people in the autistic community is that there is a very strong resistance to ever let it come off as an excuse,” he continues. “No one’s looking for an excuse. I think that is also the insulting part of [Kennedy’s] statements.”

Demi Burnett

Bachelor alum Demi Burnett revealed her autism in an Instagram post in 2022, telling followers “I did a psychological evaluation and I’m autistic. There is a huge stigma when it comes to autism. I encourage you to be open minded and accepting.” Burnett, who was 27 at the time, has since become an outspoken advocate for people with autism, sharing tips for dating with autism and showing support for loved ones.

Still, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In 2025, Burnett took to Instagram to reveal that she’s been criticized for oversharing about her autism journey online. “When I post about it, when I talk about it, people who relate can take that content, understand themselves better,” Burnett said in response. “… You should never want me to stop making autistic content because of the amount that it helps people.”

David Byrne

While Talking Heads frontman David Byrne hasn’t been officially diagnosed with autism, he spoke recently about resonating with some symptoms of ASD. Speaking on the Louis Theroux Podcast, Byrne recalled hearing about ASD for the first time in the 90s and recognizing some of the more “milder” manifestations. “I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve recognized that,’” he recalled thinking. “I’ve never thought of it as a disability, but I can see that there’s a part of me that is like that.”

The artist said that, in the past, he’s had trouble parsing facial cues and other kinds of non-verbal communication. “”I’ve had the experience where someone will say, ‘Well, I clearly said no,’ and then I’ll replay the conversation and the word ‘no’ was not there, but they expected their facial expression or the nuances of what they were saying to be read and clearly interpreted as a ‘no,’” said Byrne. “…I wasn’t able to read that.” He says he’s since gotten better at understanding facial cues, crediting music with helping him do so.