Sia Says ‘I’m on the Spectrum,’ Two Years After Her ‘Music’ Film Ignited Backlash for Being Harmful to the Autism Community

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sia disclosed on a new episode of “Rob Has a Podcast” (via People) that she is on the Autism spectrum, a revelation made two years after the pop star generated backlash for casting a neurotypical actor (her frequent collaborato Maddie Ziegler) as a nonverbal autistic teenage girl in her feature directorial debut “Music.” “I’m on the spectrum, and I’m in recovery and whatever — there’s a lot of things,” Sia said, adding, “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.” While Sia has previously discussed being sober and entering rehab for alcohol addiction, this is the first time she has publicly discussed being on the autism spectrum.

She said she found relief in “knowing about which neuroatypicality [she] may have or may not have.” “Nobody can ever know and love you when you’re filled with secrets and…living in shame,” Sia added. “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.” Sia’s 2021 movie “Music” centered on a newly-sober drug dealer (Kate Hudson) reconnecting with her younger, nonverbal autistic half-sister (Ziegler).

Several members of the autism community spoke to The New York Times ahead of the film’s release and condemned it due to Ziegler’s casting and the portrayal of autism in the movie.