Two years after misrepresenting people with autism in the film 'Music', singer-songwriter Sia revealed that she has been diagnosed with the condition herself. In a recent episode of 'Rob Has a Podcast', the Australian musician said she is "on the spectrum" and in "recovery mode". She revealed that her diagnosis had brought a sense of relief.
"I'm on the spectrum and I'm in recovery and whatever... 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," the "Chandelier" hitmaker said.
Sia, whose full name is Sia Furler, also stated that no one can "love you when you're filled with secrets and living in shame".
"And then 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," she added.
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Notably, in 2021, Sia branched out into film-making with 'Music', which is a musical drama about a woman who becomes the sole carer for her half-sister, a teenager with non-verbal autism. Sia was criticised for casting the neuro-typical actress Maddie Ziegler - who had appeared in several of her music videos - in the main role.
However, at the time of the controversy, she had hit back at critics saying that the story was inspired by her own "neuro-atypical friend" who "found it too stressful being non-verbal, and I made this movie with nothing but love for him and his mother". She later also offered an apology, adding the scenes in question in Music would be removed from future screenings.
