Anthony Hopkins has dismissed his wife Stella Arroyave’s belief that he may be on the autism spectrum.
He said he does not identify with the diagnosis and calls modern mental health labels “fashion.”
In an interview with The Sunday Times published Saturday, the 87-year-old Oscar winner said his wife once suggested he might have Asperger syndrome because of his personality traits.
“I’m obsessed with numbers. I’m obsessed with detail. I like everything in order. And memorizing,” Anthony Hopkins said. “Stella looked it up and she said, ‘You must be Asperger’s.'”
Hopkins said he disagreed with her assessment.
“I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about,” he said. “I don’t even believe it.”
Asperger syndrome is no longer a formal medical diagnosis. Since 2013, it has been included within the broader category of autism spectrum disorder.
According to the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic, ASD involves differences in brain development that affect communication, social interaction, and behavior.
Hopkins, speaking ahead of Tuesday’s release of his memoir “We Did OK, Kid,” criticized the trend of labeling mental health conditions.
“Well, I guess I’m cynical because it’s all nonsense,” he said. “It’s all rubbish. ADHD, OCD, Asperger’s, blah, blah, blah. Oh God, it’s called living.”
He added, “It’s just being a human being, full of tangled webs and mysteries and stuff that’s in us. Full of warts and grime and craziness, it’s the human condition. All these labels. I mean, who cares? But now it’s fashion.”
The actor said he has long suspected he inherited mental health struggles from his late father, Richard Hopkins.
“Oh yes, it crossed my mind that there was something not right with me,” he said.
Hopkins also recalled that Laurence Olivier once advised him to see a psychiatrist early in his career.
Although he briefly saw a therapist, he stopped attending sessions.
“He kept saying, ‘Let’s go back.’ And I’d just go, ‘I don’t want to do this. So boring,'” Hopkins said, explaining that he quit after learning the therapist was married three times.
In his memoir, Hopkins reflects on his decadeslong estrangement from his daughter, Abigail Hopkins, 57, whom he shares with his first wife, Petronella Barker.
He writes that he left the family while struggling with alcoholism and later concluded he was “unfit as a father,” The Independent reported.
Despite attempts to reconnect after achieving sobriety, the relationship remained distant.
Anthony Hopkins describes the separation as “the saddest fact of my life and my greatest regret,” adding that his “door is always open” to his daughter.
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