Chrisette Michele Shares Autism Diagnosis


Chrisette Michele also shared why she’s been relatively quiet, which includes her taking time away from hosting her Chrisette Michele Show podcast. “I’ve been outside,” she wrote. “Singing… but learning to strip the mask. One show at a time (the irony). Just… coming to grips with a lot and giving myself room to take it all in. My life and its challenges finally make sense. So so much sense. Autistic. Would you get a load of that… I’ll talk more soon. Just wanted to say hi… from stage side.”

The Central Islip, New York native was in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday opening up for Anthony Hamilton. There haven’t been too many concert performances for the R&B star after she endured torrential backlash after performing at the inauguration of Donald Trump for his first presidential term in 2017. Her last album, Out of Control, was released a year later. But the backlash was strong enough that her label subsequently dropped her, and she also revealed that her family disowned her afterward.

“The first thing I thought was that I have an opportunity to get in front of these people who don’t seem to understand who they’re talking to and show them what we look like,” she said to Billboard after the inauguration in 2017. “I felt automatically committed to making sure that I stood up for the women who’ve felt disrespected and the minorities who felt disrespected, communities that felt that they weren’t being heard or understood,” Michele added. “I thought that it was almost my responsibility to not just say yes but to say yes with purpose, so that was my reasoning. And no, I didn’t think twice about it.”