Sia Reveals Recent Autism Diagnosis

Australian music superstar Sia has revealed that two years ago, she received a life-changing autism diagnosis.

"I'm on the spectrum, and I'm in recovery and whatever - there's a lot of things,” she said in a recent chat on the Rob Has A Podcast program hosted by Rob Cesternino. You can watch the interview below - Sia appears at the 10:18 mark.

The podcast is based on the US version of Survivor, and Sia appeared on the episode to console runner-up contestant, Carolyn Wiger, and offered $100,000 to help with her financial burdens. 

Wiger has previously detailed her experience with autism and ADHD on Instagram, while also noting that she had been in recovery for addiction. That’s when Sia revealed her recent diagnosis.

Sia told Cesternino and Wiger that “knowing about which neuroatypicality [she] may have or may not have” has been a relief. 

She continued, “I think one of the greatest things is that nobody can ever know you and love you when you’re filled with secrets and living in shame.

“And when we finally sit in a roomful 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—then we can start going out into the world and operating as human beings with hearts, and not pretending to be anything.”

“I’ve felt like 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 myself.” Sia then applauded Wiger for not “[putting] her human suit on. Who just showed up and was willing to be rejected, and to be the weird one.” 

She closed the conversation by noting, “The kook in me recognizes the kook in you.”

Sia’s revelation about her autism diagnosis arrives two years after Music, the first film she ever directed, drew criticism for its depiction of characters living with autism.

Responding to the online criticism, the Chandelier singer wrote at the time that she had “two people on the spectrum advising [her] at all times”. Sia didn’t mention any autism diagnosis in that moment.