Why Sheldon Riley is removing his autistic mask for Eurovision - BBC News

A great example to follow..He has shown that with effort everything is achieved.He is great artist with an exceptional voice. PS :Being different makes us truly unique.Less hate and More love

I am so proud of Sheldon!!! The neurodiverse community around the world is so proud of you too!!!

as someone with adhd who has been masking her whole life and failing miserably at it - this was quite powerful for me, thanks so much for this. ❤️

The performance was great and his voice is perfect 😍 I really loved and enjoyed every minute of it 🥰

Thank you Sheldon for giving us all our voice ❤

One of my favourites this year. Greetings from Finland 🇫🇮😊

My hats off to you! Congratulations on being who you are an exception yourself! Love your voice!

Okay the BBC really need to work on their titles :/

He proves it is alright to be different and you should be brave to the challenge and break the boundaries holding you back. I am happy he stepped up to be brave and he is a great role model to everyone by doing such a brave thing and coming out of his comfort zone.

I love this. As a fellow Aspie with 2 sons who are also autistic we can relate. The depression that most autistic people experience is from the pressure of needing to be “normal” from society. So instead we chose to hide. The masking is exhausting and causes sometimes unbearable mental health issues.

The ableism in this comment section is scary... Some of y'all really need to touch some grass and maybe read about autism and all the struggles we have to face because of society's unwillingness to acknowledge us, as well as all the stigmas we face because of stupid stereotypes. Sheldon wrote a beautiful song I think a lot of us autistics can relate to, he not only shared his experience but also gave visibility to people who are too often forgotten, shamed, mocked and misrepresented in medias. Also wearing a mask for people who have stage fright is not uncommon, so why does it suddenly become a problem? Especially when that mask is a representation of autism masking which is a widely unknown thing autistic people have to deal with. Again: educate yourself, and respect people instead of acting like peaces of shit.

reader beware of headass comments

As an autistic person this means a lot. If you are allistic (non-autistic) please learn more about the autistic community. There are a lot of things that are wrong about the world and make autistic people suffer, and we can’t change it without allistics help.

Good call on him, hope these viewers will show his face instead of hiding.

Wow ! What a fantastic voice ! I hope he wins 😊 !

You're just wonderful Sheldon!

I pray Australia wins.

I never even knew Australia was in Europe. You learn something new every day.

Beautiful song.

Leave that mask off, you don't need it. You have a great voice, let it be heard and seen.