Yahoo News Viewer outrage as Richard Madeley asks 'The Undateables' star autism question
There has been widespread viewer outrage after Richard Madeley asked a question about autism on Friday’s Good Morning Britain.
The Undateables favourite Daniel Wakefield appeared on the show on Friday (November 2), but things took an awkward turn after stand-in presenter Richard Madeley asked a rather ignorant question about autism.
Wakefield, a singer-songwriter, was appearing on the ITV morning show with his mum Carol to talk about his new album.
But viewers were left unimpressed by Madeley when he asked Wakefield’s mum if he’d “always been autistic”.
Disgusted by the question, viewers took to Twitter to criticise Madeley and state that he should ‘do some research.’
#GMB “has he always been autistic?” What an uneducated stupid question there by Richard Madeley 🙄
— Lacey Noel (@laceyellen27) November 2, 2018
@GMB omg @richardm56 has he always had autism !! It's doesn't come and go 😂😂 as a parent of an autistic child it's a life long condition ! Another example of still not understanding autism #autismawareness
— lisa holmes (@LisaEddie1825) November 2, 2018
#gmb Richard interviewing Daniel. So awkward… “have you always been autistic” REALLY??!! Do some research. They were also using far to much language in their questions #autism #autismawareness
— Charlotte Cohen (@OwlChar) November 2, 2018
One viewer tweeted: “As if Richard said “has he always been autistic?” Just shows we have a long way to go in this country for awareness of autism.”
While another wrote: “Has Daniel always been autistic”? Was that actually a serious bloody question?”
Responding to the question, Wakefield’s mum said: “Yes. Well, it’s controversial about that but we realised round about 18 months that there was a problem.
“He lost all of his speech and language abilities and that came about very slowly and then it was never really as it was.
“He is on the autistic spectrum with a speech disorder.”
She explained how singing and writing songs has helped him to communicate with his family.
“It’s easier for you to express your feelings when you sing,” she said to him.
“The first song he ever wrote was ‘The Black of Lonely’ and that was the first time we realised how he felt because he could never tell us. It was very emotional because we didn’t realise that all that was going on.”
Wakefield also spoke about his one year anniversary with girlfriend Lily, who he met on the Channel 4 dating show, stating: “Me and Lily are really excited about getting really romantic”. He added that he one day hopes to marry her.”
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