Just a few weeks after U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said people with autism would never pay taxes, hold a job, or go on a date, Holly Robinson Peete has an update about her son that defies the health leader’s remarks.
The 60-year-old actress and singer, whose adult son, RJ, lives with autism, told People magazine that after holding down a job for nearly ten years, her son has officially moved out of the house and is living on his own.
“I really didn’t think that we were gonna check that one off the list, and he did,” Peete shared with the publication. “He got an apartment and he got a place closer to work so he doesn’t have to drive so far and so late. He loves it. I miss him already.”
RJ, 27, is in his tenth season working as a beloved club attendant for the Los Angeles Dodgers, which Peete said involves “manual labor” and “long hours.”
“I’m so grateful to the Dodgers for giving RJ that opportunity and to any employer that hires inclusively like that,” Peete said. “RJ’s only kept this job because he has been supported there. They understand who he is.”
Peete, who shares RJ with her husband, former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, first received her son’s diagnosis in 2000 when he was three years old. Since then, her son has far exceeded many of the initial limitations doctors set on that fateful day 25 years ago now dubbed the “never day.” On that day, Peete said the doctors gave her a laundry list of milestones her son would likely “never” accomplish, including talking, getting a job, finding a partner, and more.
Comments like those made by RFK Jr. during a press conference held on April 16— that “autism destroys families,” the disability is an “individual tragedy,” and that “most cases now are severe”—take Peete back to that day 25 years ago.
“It feels like I’m transported back in time to a time when we didn’t know as much as we know about autism,” she said.
“Autism does not destroy families,” Peete declared. “But you know what does? Not having access to healthcare. In Black and brown communities, families are not able to even get their kids to the diagnosis of autism so that they can get the interventions and treatments [they need]. Those are the things that destroy families, not autism. So immediately, I was so triggered hearing that because that is just inherently false.”
The mother has also become an advocate, spreading awareness and providing support to families impacted by the condition through a foundation she launched, the HollyRod Foundation, which also supports those affected by Parkinson’s disease.
“He decided to marginalize,” she said, adding that his comments have “driven a little bit of a wedge in the autism community between those with high-support needs and low-support needs. A wedge like I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been doing this [for] 25 years.”
Peete also addressed RFK Jr.’s comments in an Instagram Live and a follow-up post on her account.
“We’ve come so far in advocacy and destroying stigma in the autism community,” she wrote in the caption of the post. “Let’s not let folks with an agenda, eradicate all the work that we’ve done… I’m always gonna be for research but watch your mouth the way you talk about our kids… autism is not political.”
