Schumer, husband address autism stigma
Amy Schumer says she wanted to be open about her husband’s high-functioning autism-spectrum disorder to help eradicate any stigma.
Chris Fischer, a chef who Schumer wed last February, is a topic of her second Netflix comedy special, Growing, just released globally. The comic soon received praise from autism-advocacy groups for bringing visibility to people with ASD, a “developmental disorder that affects communication and behaviour”, including “difficulty with communication and interaction with other people” and “restricted interests and repetitive behaviours”, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
As a guest on Late Night last week, Schumer said that her husband’s diagnosis was “a sum positive” for their union.
“Yeah, totally. That’s why we both wanted to talk about it — because it’s been totally positive,” she said. “And I think a lot of people resist getting diagnosed, and even with some of their children, ‘cause of the stigma that comes along with it. But you’re not just diagnosed, and then they throw you out. Hopefully, if you can get help, like the tools that we’ve been given, have made his life so much better and our marriage and our life more manageable. And so I just wanted to encourage people to not be afraid of that stigma.”
The I Feel Pretty star acknowledged her husband’s life is “not like [that of ] everybody on the spectrum” and complimented him as “an amazing guy”.
“I don’t want to make it sound like, ‘I’m so nice that I married someone with autism’,” she said. “I fell in love with him, and I wouldn’t trade him in for anybody.”
As she does in her special, Schumer also talked about the fact that Fischer can’t lie.
“It’s a dream, but it’s also like a real nightmare,” she said. “He’s here, and I came out, right before ‘cause I changed outfits. I’m like, ‘Does this look OK?’. And he was like, ‘Well, it’s too late’. He’s right, though. It was too late!”
In Growing, Schumer speaks of her husband’s condition with love and humour, saying that dating him presented many “huh? moments.”
For example, instead of helping her up once when she fell, he “kind of froze and became a lighthouse, opening and closing his mouth”.
She also tells a story about how, before their first red-carpet appearance, Schumer encouraged Fischer to think of the ocean as cameras flash, because “one of the signs of autism is you don’t make the appropriate facial expressions for the occasion you’re at”.
The suggestion worked too well: He appeared sublimely happy in every frame.