Paddy and Christine McGuinness, Katie Price, Kerry Katona, and many more celebs are proud parents of neurodivergent kids.
Here’s the list of celebs currently smashing it and doing an incredible job as parents to neurodivergent children.
Paddy and Christine McGuinness
Paddy and Christine have been very open about life as parent to neurodiverse children. Their three children, Penelope, Felicity, and Leo are autistic.
Their journey raising their children also saw Christine learn that she too is autistic. The couple fronted a documentary on BBC One in 2021 titled, Paddy And Christine McGuinness: Our Family And Autism.
In his documentary, he said: “If anybody mentioned the word autism to me I would say “I don’t want to speak about it, I don’t want to think about it.” Now I’m finally talking about autism, I just wish I hadn’t spent so much time trapped by the fear of it all.”
Katie Price
Former glamour model Katie is another star with a neurodivergent child. Her eldest son, Harvey Price, is autistic. He also has Prader-Willi syndrome and is partially blind.
Katie has documented Harvey’s journey from a very young age, and he was subject of two documentaries for the BBC – Katie Price: Harvey and Me, and What Harvey Did Next.
She also went down the legal route to make online abuse a crime following trolling against Harvey.
“I’m proud of Harvey in so many ways. People have to remember I got told he wouldn’t walk, talk or do anything really and he does it all,” she said last year.
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Kerry Katona
Kerry is also the mother to a neurodiverse child. Her son, Max, has ADHD – a condition that affects him so much that she has had to remove him from school.
“We’ve decided to pull him out after speaking to a psychiatrist and his teachers. He’s got severe ADHD and finds the environment really difficult to cope with,” she said last week. “It’s been a tough road for him and we’ve been through hell, but we’re all in agreement that its the best way forward.”
Max has a job working on a building site now – and is currently being homeschooled.
Gregg Wallace
MasterChef star Gregg shares an adorable, four-year-old son, Sid, with his wife, Anne-Marie Sterpini. Sid is non-verbal and has autism.
Speaking to The Times recently, Gregg confessed they don’t know whether Sid will start speaking as he grows up. “The bad thing is nobody can tell you what’s going to happen; the good thing is nobody can tell you what’s going to happen,” he said.
However, he and Anne-Marie are holding out hope after noticing some signs of development in the youngster.
“We hold out hope because we can see development in him, however slow that may be. That is still development,” Gregg said.
Carol Vorderman
Former Countdown star Carol Vorderman is the proud mother to Cameron. Cameron has high-spectrum autism, ADD, dyslexia, and ADHD.
Despite spending years being rejected by schools, Cameron ended up not only going to university but gaining a Master’s degree too.
“That we are here, with him gaining a master’s is down to Cameron, and his determination,’ Carol told the DailyMail in 2021. “I could not be prouder of how he has done this, because frankly, I didn’t know how it would be possible.”
“The gap between how I thought children learned and how he needed to learn was so vast. But he has been teaching me. I’m still learning from him,” she said.
Keith Duffy
Boyzone star Keith Duffy has spoken about his daughter – who has autism – in the past. His daughter, Mia, was diagnosed with autism aged 18 months. Now, in her early twenties, Keith has made it clear how proud he is of her.
“She’s doing wonderful – we’re very, very proud of her,” he said in 2022. “Mia’s very determined. She puts a lot of pressure on herself, but she achieves a great amount, and that was all down to appropriate intervention at the right stage of her life, which we had to fight hand over tooth for, but we got there.”
Mia went to university to study computer engineering. At the time of Keith’s interview, she had also reportedly been offered a “great” job by an American company.
David and Carrie Grant
David and Carrie Grant have four children – all of whom are neurodiverse.
“They’re incredible – they’re absolutely bonkers, but wonderful. They’re outside the box, and because of that they’re magical, amazing, with incredible, expansive imagination,” Carrie said on Loose Women.
“They put the funk into dysfunctional,” David added.
Sam Bailey
X Factor star Sam revealed that she wouldn’t change her son “for the world” during an interview in 2022. Her son has dyspraxia as well as autism.
“I wouldn’t change Tommy for the world. I just want him to have a life where he can grow and meet people and maybe one day fall in love and have children of his own,” she said.
“Autism doesn’t go away. He’s not going to get better, but he can learn to cope with things better,” she then added.
They’re all doing incredibly.
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