Elle King Shares How Autism Diagnosis Has Brought Clarity To Her Life

Elle King is opening up about her recent autism diagnosis and how it has given her a deeper understanding of herself.

Back in May, the singer and mom of two took to social media to write, “Good news is, I’m autistic.” She didn’t expand on that statement any further at the time, but while recently reflecting on her experience filming the new reality show Nation’s Dumbest, King shared how the diagnosis helped explain things about herself that she had struggled to make sense of before.

“I love games. I love game shows. I’m extremely competitive, and I love puzzles and everything,” King told US Weekly. “I actually found out right after the show that I’m autistic, and so I was like, ‘Everything makes so much sense now.’ But I didn’t even know.”

Hosted by Jack Whitehall, the show, which premieres today (June 15) on Fox, features a mix of different stars from all different areas of the entertainment industry who all come together to work their way through school-themed challenges, including logic tests, pop quizzes, and physical rounds. Each week, the smartest of the celebrity players will “graduate” from the show, narrowing down the contestants until the end of the challenge, where a final exam will determine the winner of the unwanted title of Nation’s Dumbest.

According to King, it wasn’t until after signing on for the show that she started to question whether she was up for the challenge, and feared that she would be deemed the least intelligent among her fellow contestants

“Right before the show, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ [I was] starting to panic, ‘There is a scenario that you could be the nation’s dumbest,’” she recalled.

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With this worry in the back of her head, King decided to take an IQ test to see where she stood and ended up being surprised by the high score of 132 that she received, while the average IQ test score is 100 on nearly all standardized tests.

“I didn’t even trust it, so I took another one, and I got the same score on a different website,” she admitted.  

Receiving an autism diagnosis has provided a completely new perspective for the “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer. As she continues learning more about her diagnosis, she feels determined to embrace this next chapter with intention.

“It’s so important to continue,” she said. “I’m still learning. I don’t understand it. I just don’t want to do things the way that I used to do it because, ultimately, at the end of the day, I truly enjoy being an artist, being a performer, and getting to do all these other things just as myself is really fun for me. I keep telling myself whatever this next chapter is, I really want to be present and enjoy it. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

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Ella King is also making an effort to be more mindful about the people she surrounds herself with and the choices she makes moving forward, in order to become a better happier version of herself.

“I’ve had a lot of not my proudest moments, and so especially with my autism diagnosis, I am putting new kinds of safety barricades,” she said. “And I just want to be around people that I feel safe around, and I just want to do things that bring me joy.”