Most reality TV stars experience the perils of social media judgement — the latest to find herself at the centre of a whirlwind of discourse is Love Island's Yasmin Pettet. Since the commercial banking executive joined the group last week, she has, to put it delicately, not been everyone's cup of tea. On or off the island. Some fans of the show have taken it upon themselves to 'explain' her behaviour with an amateur diagnosis. “Realised Yasmin isn't ai she's just autistic and horny and we should support that #loveisland,” wrote one on X. Another wrote, “someone said Yasmin might be autistic, i can see that #LoveIsland.”
“The public discourse around whether Yasmin has autism is the latest example of how quickly audiences can leap to diagnosing someone with autism based on brief glimpses of behaviour,” says Leanne Maskell, an ADHD and AuDHD Coach, Author, Trainer and the Founder of ADHD Works. These public diagnoses, she explains, can actually do more harm than good. For one thing, the “truth” about a person's behaviour is, as she puts it, “especially distorted through the lens of 'reality' television. The public see a tiny proportion of 'reality' from these shows, which has been edited and presented to maximise engagement.”
She adds, "It's ironic that people who seek diagnosis are often blamed of 'just wanting a label'. In reality, it's often other people who are so quick to apply these labels externally, without understanding the complexities behind them — or the consequences."
A similar pattern of armchair diagnosis occurred earlier this year with Married at First Sight Australia's Jacqui Burfoot. Her experiences on the show presented a complex picture, with moments of vulnerability and tears followed by laughter, and fluctuating feelings towards her partner, Ryan Donnelly. However, some fans of the show took it upon themselves to “explain” her behaviour by flippantly diagnosing her with AuDHD, an unofficial term used to describe people with autism and ADHD. “Do we think Jacqui is on the autistic spectrum,” one viewer wrote on X. “It's getting clearer and clearer that both Ryan and Jacqui are autistic,” wrote another. Jacqui recently responded to one fan's question in a TikTok video, saying, “I haven't been diagnosed with anything. I don't identify as neurodivergent, I don't have an issue with anyone who is. I actually have a thing and love autistic people because they are so sweet hearted and kind and sensitive. And I'm a very sensitive person as well.”
And Yasmin and Jacqui are only the latest instalments of a trend of diagnosing celebrities with AuDHD. In 2023, Steven Bartlett was ‘diagnosed’ with ADHD live on his Diary of a CEO podcast by Dr. Daniel Amen after a brain scan. That same year, Dr Gabor Mate ‘diagnosed’ Prince Harry with ADHD during a live streamed conversation about his book, Spare. Now, fans are ‘diagnosing' Jacqui from Married at First Sight in the same way.
Maskell, whose book, AuDHD: Blooming Differently, was released this year, believes that fan diagnoses of celebrities, such as Jacqui and Yasmin, can actually do more harm than good. Here, she explains why we should all stop diagnosing celebrities with AuDHD.
Maskell's words has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I was diagnosed with ADHD age 25 after almost taking my own life. Until then, doctors had told me I was fine because I had a law degree. I presented the psychiatrist with a full list of the conditions I was sure I had (ADHD and autism weren't on there!), so I burst out laughing when he said I had ADHD. Back then, I admit I thought it was a made up condition for little boys misbehaving in class.
It took me another full year to accept what I had been told and return for a diagnosis. Several years later, I understood that I was also autistic, after coaching so many AuDHD-ers whose experiences mirrored mine. Like many people receiving support for ADHD, I understood that what was driving the impulsivity was autism, and stopping doing things like binge drinking alcohol to survive social situations revealed the intense pain I had been masking. Overall, it took me 2 years of rumination to decide to finally seek an assessment, after struggling significantly with my symptoms to the point of becoming suicidal when my routine changed significantly.
Even though I was fortunate to find a neuro-affirmative assessor with expertise in women's experiences of ADHD and autism, the assessment process was still very challenging, as it required going over my entire life through a new lens.
As the season nears its end, we've got all the goss.
My experience has made me all too aware that medical diagnoses aren’t a public sport — as such, it worries me to see the trend of public celebrity diagnosis.
Of course, on one hand, I do see why it is happening. After all, healthcare systems have and continue to fail neurodivergent people globally, so getting a real diagnosis can be challenging. The outdated diagnostic criteria is still based on young boys and there are typically decades-long waiting lists for assessment, along with medication shortages. People are desperate for support — and many may be tempted to self-diagnose, or, once they receive a diagnosis of their own, to diagnose others.
As formal medical information is outdated, social media and the sharing of lived experiences within a global community is growing exponentially. While this can be great in terms of raising awareness, it's important to remember that behind the screens, everyone is a human being — we don't see the full picture. And pinning a diagnosis on someone else can actually do more harm than good.
In fact, the impact of “diagnosing” autism, ADHD, or both in other people, when we aren't medical professionals carrying out formal assessments, can have a significant impact on the neurodivergent community. For one thing, unprofessional diagnoses can lead to harmful misinformation. When we “diagnose” others based on snippets of what we're presented with, we risk strengthening the common headlines seen about how neurodivergence isn't “real” — that it is merely a “trend.”
When we set the example of taking serious, comprehensive medical assessments into our own hands, we also risk undermining the extreme struggles that the majority of neurodivergent have in accessing a medical diagnosis.
I believe that everybody is fully entitled to self-identify with neurodivergence, especially considering how difficult it is to access an assessment, but we should take care when this involves other people. There's also the possibility that by diagnosing those in our day-to-day life, we risk getting it wrong. The reason that not everybody has ADHD, despite us all losing our keys sometimes, is because the diagnostic criteria requires symptoms throughout a person's life to have met a certain level of “disorder.” Although this is far from perfect, it's an important distinction that we aren't qualified to make — we haven't seen that person grow up, for example. Diagnosing others can lead to unforeseen consequences.
Everybody is on their own journey, and even if someone is neurodivergent and doesn't know it, they might not be ready to hear it. It may even make them less likely to seek out support, in a form of demand avoidance, as they may attach opinions to why others are making that assumption.
For example, I knew someone who's parents kept telling them to seek an ADHD diagnosis, which only resulted in that person increasingly feeling that their parents were trying to shift the responsibility of their actions onto a medical condition they didn't believe they had. Ironically, the more they kept pushing, the more that person started to view ADHD in a negative light, feeling as though they were being labelled as “disordered.”
Although it can be tempting to discuss potential symptoms of neurodivergence in others, speculating about someone’s neurodivergence not only disrespects their autonomy, but also risks trivialising and stigmatising the real, lived experiences of neurodivergent people.
“It all started to click for me: ADHD might have contributed to my dwindling capacity for other people.”
