Is Messi autistic?: What’s the truth behind Anuel AA’s controversial statement about the Argentine star that went viral on social media

Urban singer Anuel AA caused a great controversy by commenting on the alleged condition of the famous soccer player Lionel Messi: he assured that he suffers from autism.

The statements of the Puerto Rican interpreter, in which he spoke about this as part of his intervention in the podcast “Hablemos Autismo”, by Tony Rodríguez Pumare, went viral on social networks.

Namely, he is heard saying: “Autism was diagnosed as a disease by scientists who wanted to give it that name, because autism in reality… Look at Messi! “Messi is autistic and is the most influential person in the world”

Why did Anuel AA say that Messi is autistic?

Anuel attended the aforementioned interview to share his experience with autism. In her case, one of her nieces was diagnosed with the disorder so she experienced first hand what this image represents. Furthermore, he was able to share personally with Messi and, as he says, “learned from him” fully acknowledging his diagnosis.

In the full version of the podcast, he is heard saying: “If we go to the reality of living people on this planet, Messi is the most influential person (…) I always felt modest, but when I met Messi I said look at him. There you can see the great humility this man has and the quality in his heart” and “I learned a lot from people with autism.”

The truth about Messi’s alleged autism

According to El Herald, Messi was diagnosed at the age of 9 with two conditions that are well-known in the Argentine athlete’s profile.

The first is the lack of growth hormone, for which he had to be treated for years; while the other “Asperger’s syndrome”, a condition associated with autism spectrum disorder, but not autism itself.

The entire Messi family is a fan of Ed Sheeran, and the Argentinian star shared that when he filmed his children excitedly singing “Bad Habits” at the British star’s concert.

With Messi, this manifests itself in the fact that it forces him to focus his attention almost exclusively on physical activities, especially football, in which he has excelled since his youth out of pure pleasure.

However, according to the DSM-5 manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the term “Asperger’s syndrome”, which until then was attributed to the attacker, is no longer used clinically. Now it is simply considered a “variant of autism spectrum disorder”.

Therefore, Anuel’s words could be updated to refer to the same diagnosis. However, neither Messi nor those close to him have addressed the issue or made recent statements about it.