According to 2020 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, about one in 54 children has ASD. But it’s not just kids who are being diagnosed with autism. To gain a greater understanding of just how prevalent ASD is among children and adults, here are seven celebrities who are on the autism spectrum, many of whom were diagnosed later in life. RELATED: The Biggest Misconceptions About Autism Spectrum Disorder. Prison Break actor Wentworth Miller—one of a growing number of people who are receiving an ASD diagnosis later in life—recently documented the one-year anniversary of his autism diagnosis with a public post on Instagram, People reported on July 27. “This fall marks [one] year since I received my informal autism diagnosis. Preceded by a self-diagnosis. Followed by a formal diagnosis,” the 49-year-old actor said in his post of a photo of a blank white square. Miller also went on to express his frustration with the difficult road that led to his diagnosis calling it “a long, flawed process in need of updating” before acknowledging that “access to a diagnosis is a privilege many do not enjoy.” As for what the future holds as he navigates life with autism, Miller shared the following: “I don’t know enough about autism. (There’s a lot to know.) Right now my work looks like evolving my understanding. Re-examining [five] decades of lived experience thru a new lens.” RELATED: 4 Symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer Alex Trebek Wished He’d Known Sooner. As a member of Saturday Night Live’s “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” original cast, Dan Aykroyd has been making audiences laugh since the 1970s. Aykroyd—who was also diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome as a child—spoke with the Daily Mail in 2013 about his Asperger’s diagnosis, even crediting the condition with helping him create one of the biggest blockbuster franchises in film history. “I also have Asperger’s but I can manage it. It wasn’t diagnosed until the early ’80s when my wife persuaded me to see a doctor,” Aykroyd said in the interview. “One of my symptoms included my obsession with ghosts and law enforcement—I carry around a police badge with me, for example. I became obsessed by Hans Holzer, the greatest ghost hunter ever. That’s when the idea of my film Ghostbusters was born.” Asperger’s syndrome is often considered a milder form of autism by experts. It was diagnosed separately until 2013 when, according to the Autism Society, it was added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as being a part of autism spectrum disorder. From 1984’s Splash to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films in the early 2000s, Daryl Hannah has been a Hollywood fixture for decades. But it wasn’t until 2013 that she spoke publicly about her struggle with being in the spotlight, largely as a result of her autism, which she was diagnosed with as a child. “I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention. It’s always freaked me out,” Hannah told People. She said she was often so uncomfortable that she refused to appear on talk shows and other promotional events for her films, which she says she is much better at now. “I wasted so much time scared, self-conscious, and insecure,” Hannah said.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Celebrated actor Sir Anthony Hopkins said he didn’t find out he had Asperger’s syndrome until he was around 70. “I definitely look at people differently,” the Silence of the Lambs star told the Daily Mail in 2018 when he was asked how the condition affected his acting ability. “I like to deconstruct, to pull a character apart, to work out what makes them tick and my view will not be the same as everyone else. I get offered a lot of controlling parts, maybe because that’s how people see me. And maybe I am very controlled because I’ve had to be. I don’t question it, I just take the parts because I’m an actor and that’s what I do.” In a Rolling Stone profile following the death of her husband, Kurt Cobain, Hole frontwoman and Golden Globe-nominated actor Courtney Love talked about the role autism played in her childhood. “When I talk about being introverted, I was diagnosed autistic,” Love said. “At an early age, I would not speak. 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.” RELATED: For more celebrity health news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Australian stand-up comedian Hannah Gadsby is another example of how receiving an autism diagnosis later in life can have an impact on a person’s perspective of the world. “It shifted the way that I understood myself,” Gadsby told NPR in March 2020 of her 2016 ASD diagnosis. “I was always operating on the false premise that everyone saw the world like I did.” Television writer Dan Harmon said character research for his hit TV series Community is what led to his Asperger’s diagnosis. “I started looking up these symptoms, just to know what they are. And the more I looked them up, the more familiar they started to seem,” Harmon told Wired in 2011. After taking some online tests, he met with a doctor and found out that his symptoms aligned with those of someone on the spectrum. Learning she had Asperger’s syndrome late in life came as a source of comfort for Susan Boyle, the Scottish singer who shot to fame in 2009 after appearing on Britain’s Got Talent. “It was the wrong diagnosis when I was a kid,” Boyle told The Guardian in 2013. “I was told I had brain damage. I always knew it was an unfair label. Now I have a clearer understanding of what’s wrong and I feel relieved and a bit more relaxed about myself.” RELATED: Robert Downey Jr. Meets Boy With Autism in Emotional “Ellen” Interview.
