Sia slams netizens for criticizing Maddie Ziegler’s casting as an autistic teen

Sia recently took to Twitter to address all of the hate she has been getting for her new film Music and its autistic casting choices.

For the unversed, the movie initially began incurring backlash after it was revealed that the girl Sia casted to play the autistic role, was in fact able bodied.

The hate became so great at one point that Sia was forced to take it upon herself to personally answer fan comments on the casting choice.

After many dubbed the singer’s choice “unacceptable,” she went out on a limb and clarified her decision by claiming, “I actually tried working with a a beautiful young girl non verbal on the spectrum and she found it unpleasant and stressful. So that’s why I cast Maddie.”

Others took the singer’s comment negatively and re-started their barrage of attacks over the “offensive” nature of her 'word choice'. Yet, Sia chose to remain calm and even addressed those comments to the best of her abilities, saying, “I’ve never referred to music as disabled. Special abilities is what I’ve always said, and casting someone at her level of functioning was cruel, not kind, so I made the executive decision that we would do our best to lovingly represent the community.”

Near the end, Sia appeared so ‘over it’ that she released one more tweet saying, “I cast thirteen neuroatypical people, three trans folk, and not as [expletive] prostitutes or drug addicts but s as doctors, nurses and singers. [expletive] sad nobody’s even seen the dang movie. My heart has always been in the right place.”

Check out the trailer below: