Sia apologises to autism community for Music film and deactivates Twitter account

Since late last year, Sia has been criticised by autism rights activists and members of the autism community over the decision to cast neurotypical actor Maddie Ziegler to play the role of an autistic person in her directorial debut film Music. Sia has also been criticised for her choice of language when describing autistic people, and after responding to the backlash, a petition was started to cancel the entire film, which has gained over 17,000 signatures.

Yesterday (3 February), Sia addressed the film on Twitter after Music received two Golden Globe nominations. According to Variety, Sia wrote that she had "been listening" to criticism, and added that Music will "have this warning at the head of the movie" that addresses scenes showing physical restraint.

The warning reads, "MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help w meltdown safety."

Sia also added on Twitter that she plans "to remove the restraint scenes from all future printings. I listened to the wrong people and that is my responsibility, my research was clearly not thorough enough, not wide enough."

In a separate tweet, Sia simply added, "I'm sorry."

Variety notes that Sia's tweets were public for at least an hour before she deactivated her Twitter account.