Weird Al appeared on The Blocks Podcast w/ Neal Brennan earlier today. At one point in the interview (11:40) Brennan asked if Yankovic believed himself to be neurotic in any way. Al then quickly reported that folks have mentioned to him that he may be on “the spectrum” which we assume means autism spectrum. He seems to suspect that this is true.

This writer can not find an prior instance of Yankovic revealing this about himself. This is big news to me because I have been a fan of Mr Yankovic since I was a kid in the 80s. I also received a formal diagnosis of Autism about 11 years ago.

We heavily feature his music on our streaming radio channel. It’s been that way since we started. He is a big deal around here. It is a big deal to me to know that such a successful humorist and nerd is also autistic. I am sure this will mean a lot to other folks with autism as well.

A quick google search reviles that people have been debating if this was the case for quite some time. There are threads about it on Reddit, Quora and WrongPlanet. Weird Al has also done benefit work for Autism service organizations.

In the interview, Yankovic does seem a little flippant about it though. Some folks in the autism community are against self-diagnosis. Personally, I more or less diagnosed myself at first. Shortly after, I consulted professionals. My hunches were verified. This type of thing happens to a lot of us that were not diagnosed during childhood.

I can’t speak for every autistic person, but I would like Weird Al to go ahead and get an assessment. If his hunches are correct, it can result in positive validation for our community. If not, then at least we know for sure that he is a “normie” after all.