Sia reveals she’s on autism spectrum after ‘Music’ controversy

Music

By Nicholas Hautman

May 30, 2023 | 9:43am

Sia revealed she has received a late diagnosis of autism.

“I’m on the spectrum, and I’m in recovery and whatever — there’s a lot of things,” the “Chandelier” singer said Thursday during a candid conversation with “Survivor” Season 44 finalist Carolyn Wiger on “Rob Has a Podcast,” noting that she is also sober.

Sia, 47, did not disclose when she was diagnosed with the developmental disability, which the CDC says can be “detected at 18 months of age or younger,” though she suggested it was recently.

“For 45 years, I was like … ‘I’ve got to go put my human suit on,’” she explained. “And only in the last two years have I become fully, fully myself.”

While relating to the quirks that made Wiger, 36, one of the most beloved “Survivor” contestants of all time, Sia shared that she has learned to accept herself unapologetically as of late.

“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.”

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Her manager did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for additional comment.

Sia, whose full name is Sia Furler, made the revelation two years after coming under fire for casting Maddie Ziegler, who is neurotypical, as a nonverbal autistic girl in her movie “Music.”

The Grammy nominee defended herself at the time, tweeting that her “heart has always been in the right place” and urging critics to “watch my film before you judge it.”

She subsequently apologized to the autism community and added a “warning” to the beginning of the 2021 musical drama that read: “‘Music’ in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help with meltdown safety.”

The backlash left a mark on Sia, though, as she said in a 2022 interview that she was suicidal, relapsed and went to rehab after the Razzie-nominated flick’s release.