Elle King is adjusting to her somewhat new life after she was diagnosed with autism earlier this year.
The “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer has made a point to guard herself ever since she hosted Nashville’s 2024 New Years Eve Bash and performed at a Dolly Parton Tribute and was inebriated during both. She’s referred to that period of her life as her “rock bottom,” and those moments really caused her to do some soul searching as a person and as an artist.
She canceled all of the shows she had lined up, and went to therapy. It was during that time that she really learned a lot about herself, and along the way, she also found out that she’s autistic. It was back in May that King shared a social media post with the caption “Good news is, I’m autistic,” and shared an unreleased song that she was working on that appears to explore that diagnosis:
“What if no one understands me?
Will I always be this way?
What’s the price to pay for a broken soul?
Would I rather die than try to change?
I wish I could show you how it feels, but every time I try I’m still so empty.
I have had to carry all these failures.
Sometimes I just wish that you would let me.
Oh, I don’t know what will save me from myself
Oh, I don’t know who will save me from myself.
Oh lord, who will save me from myself?”
She actually became aware that she was autistic after she competed on a new game show on FOX titled Nation’s Dumbest.
King told US Weekly that, in preparation for the competition series, she took IQ exams. Both of them came back with a score of 132, which is actually much higher than the average IQ of 100. Those tests apparently also helped confirm that she is autistic:
“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.’ I love games. I love game shows. I’m extremely competitive, and I love puzzles and everything. 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.”
The daughter of comedian Rob Schneider found comfort in the diagnosis, and says that finding out she has autism – along with many of the other things that have played out in her life in the past couple of years – has encouraged her to put up barriers to protect 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. And I just want to be around people that I feel safe around, and I just want to do things that bring me joy.
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.”
