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7 Trailblazing Celebrities and Icons Living & Thriving with ADHD

Explore the inspiring journeys of 7 influential individuals who have harnessed their ADHD to achieve greatness and make a lasting impact.

7 Trailblazing Celebrities and Icons Living & Thriving with ADHD

When you have ADHD, it’s easy to feel isolated and alone in your struggles. But the truth is, a lot of people have ADHD: out of the entire US population, it’s been found that 9.4% of children1 and nearly 7% of adults2 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Plus, there are many out there living with weak EFS or undiagnosed ADHD.

 

With mental health awareness on the rise, celebrities have been opening up to the world about their own experiences with ADHD and neurodivergence, providing valuable lessons and inspiration for us normies.

 

Let’s take a look at some of the wisdom they’ve shared…

Victoria Pedretti

Victoria Pedretti, actress/celebrity with ADHD
Source: https://twitter.com/then0t0ri0usvip

Victoria Padretti stars as Dani in Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, a horror miniseries about a self-made family navigating grief and loss while figuring out the mysteries of what’s lurking in the shadows of their new home. You might also recognize her as Love Quinn, Joe’s second target, from the second season of Netflix’s thriller series You. Victoria has been living with ADHD since childhood.

In 2020, she spoke with Glamour UK over Zoom about growing up with ADHD and the impact of labels and stigma on her confidence.

 

Victoria Padretti stars as Dani in Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, a horror miniseries about a self-made family navigating grief and loss while figuring out the mysteries of what’s lurking in the shadows of their new home. You might also recognize her as Love Quinn, Joe’s second target, from the second season of Netflix’s thriller series You. Victoria has been living with ADHD since childhood.

 

In 2020, she spoke with Glamour UK over Zoom about growing up with ADHD and the impact of labels and stigma on her confidence.

  • ADHD is just a part of you, it doesn’t define who you are as a person. “I was six years old or seven years old [when diagnosed] and being told, ‘you might not ever be able to read and write well. … I have ADHD, severe ADHD. It affects the way I live, the way I think, the way I process information (or don’t process information).” 

“If I had thought of [ADHD] as a deficit, I wouldn’t be here.”

Victoria Pedretti
  • You’re not alone: labels and stigma impacted her childhood and self-esteem. “It was so damaging for me [to be labeled] at that age because it didn’t do anything for how I defined myself. It only allowed other people to make assumptions and feel like they have the answers to something far more complex than ADHD. … People tried to tell me about my own brain and my own mind my entire life. I think that’s really destructive.”
  • You are not deficient or defective for having ADHD or weak EFS. Labels do not define you. “I need other young people that are struggling in school or struggling with their emotions to know that it’s normal. They’re not deficient or defective.”

The 🗝️ Takeaway: Receiving an ADHD diagnosis is only a single step in your journey to a successful, empowered life. Labels don’t define who you are as a person: you do. You’re exactly who you’re meant to be right now. 

Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum, the American actor best known for his roles in the Magic Mike movie trilogy and 21 Jump Street, has been real about his ADHD diagnosis since 2014. Through several interviews over the years he he teaches us…

 

  • Having ADHD doesn’t mean you lack intelligence. “I have never considered myself a very smart person, for a lot of reasons. Not having early success on that one path messes with you.” 
  • Everyone’s needs are different, and yours are just as important as anyone else’s. “Everyone’s on a spectrum. Some people really need [medications] to help them, and others could maybe go on a different route. So it’s really tough. Whatever you do, hopefully you can use it to your benefit.”

“I've learned more from people than I have from school or from books."

Channing Tatum
  • Having ADHD doesn’t mean you lack intelligence. “I have never considered myself a very smart person, for a lot of reasons. Not having early success on that one path messes with you.” 
  • Everyone’s needs are different, and yours are just as important as anyone else’s. “Everyone’s on a spectrum. Some people really need [medications] to help them, and others could maybe go on a different route. So it’s really tough. Whatever you do, hopefully you can use it to your benefit.”
  • Adopt a learner’s mindset and be a sponge. “When I started going out into the world, I was drawn to people who knew about movies, art, even fashion,” he said. “I went to New York and did the whole modeling thing, and I just learned everything I could from anybody who knew something I didn’t… That’s one thing I’m pretty skilled at: I can look at a person and say, They’ve got something that I want up there in their head. I’m going to do my best to get in there and absorb it. My mom said, ‘Be a sponge.’”
 

The 🗝️ Takeaway: Be unashamed of your ADHD or weak EFS. Play to your strengths and learn as much from those around you as you can!

Channing Tatum, American actor living with ADHD
"Channing Tatum" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Doja Cat

Doja Cat, rapper and pop singer living with ADHD
"Doja Cat 2020 Vogue Taiwan 01" by VOGUE Taiwan is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

The American rapper and pop singer, Doja Cat, has been living with ADHD since high school. She found success after releasing her 2018 single “Mooo!” and has since been nominated for 16 Grammy nominations.

 

During a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone she talked about her struggles with ADHD as a teenager. 

  • It’s okay to not meet expectations. Doja Cat dropped out of high school at 16, partly due to her ADHD.

“It felt like I was stuck in one spot, and everybody else was progressing constantly.”

Doja Cat
  • Find your passion and become the best at it. After leaving school, she shifted her focus fully to music. She reached “a period of artistic awakening” she taught herself how to sing, rap, and make beats.


The 🗝️ Takeaway: Big things are possible for ADHDers who struggle in school. Use your passions to find success.

Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who has won a record-breaking 28 Olympian medals wasn’t always top of the pack. He has been living with ADHD since childhood. He struggled in school with focus and was diagnosed with ADHD at age nine.

 

In an interview he did for Child Mind Institude he said…

  • Never give up and believe in your heart. “If I could go back in time and tell my younger self something, I would tell him to believe what’s in his heart and never ever give up.”
  • Acknowledge your needs and ask for help when you need it. “It’s been something that’s changed my life since the beginning. I look at myself every day and I’m so proud and so happy of who I am and who I’ve been able to become.”

“I think the biggest thing for me was once I found that it was okay to talk to somebody and seek help, I think that’s something that’s changed my life forever. And now I’m able to live life to its fullest.”

Michael Phelps
  • He went through it too: he was treated differently than other students and talked down to by teachers. “I had kids who we were all in the same class and teachers would treat the differently than they would treat me. I had a teacher tell me that ‘I would never amount to anything’ and ‘I would never be successful.’”

 

The 🗝️ Takeaway: You’re worthy of getting the help you want and being fully supported in school and life. Learn to believe in your heart, passions, and talents. (Psst… We can help!)

Michael Phelps, retired American Olympian swimmer
"Michael Phelps" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

David Neeleman

David Neeleman, JetBlue airlines CEO
"Campuseiros Empreendem, David Neeleman, fundador da Azul" by campuspartybrasil is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

You might not recognize his name, but you’ll definitely recognize his brand. David Neelman, founder and CEO of JetBlue Airlines (among others) was diagnosed with ADHD as in 2002. He sees living with ADHD as something to be grateful for. “I want people to understand that it’s a special gift, that it’s not something that can hold you back.”

  • Find your purpose in life. “I think what’s more important is to find meaning and purpose in your life. I think that’s what we really lack today. I think people are struggling to find meaning and purpose.”
  • Follow the path that gets you excited. “You have to figure out what your passion is. And then once you figure it out you’ll become the best in the world at it, because you’re obsessed with it. What really gets you up in the morning and gets you excited?”

“I want people to understand that it's a special gift, that it's not something that can hold you back.”

David Neeleman
  • Protect your energy: the people around you influence your success. “I was just really careful to surround myself with people that could complement my ADHD. I have people around me that help implement a lot of the ideas I have.”


The 🗝️ Takeaway: Find your passion and become the best at it, and along the way, surround yourself with people who help you thrive.

Vanessa Castañeda Gill

Vanessa Castañeda Gill is CEO of Social Cipher. She’s also the creator of Ava, an action-adventure roleplaying game built to help neurodivergent students learn social-emotional skills (SEL) like self-awareness and emotional regulation.

 

She’s been very open about how living with ADHD and autism (now ASD) impacted her teenage experience during interviews with HP’s The Garage and her the Xceptional Leaders podcast. In 2020, she spoke with Glamour UK over Zoom about growing up with ADHD and the impact of labels and stigma on her confidence.

  • Like many of our students at Thrivister, she struggled with a lot of shame about her diagnosis. She was a second-generation Mexican-American teenager growing up in Southern California in a time where “a lot of the stereotypes or media portrayals of autism were usually white boys who were cold, calculating, and kind of robotic – and that was very much not me.”

“With girls and women, there’s still a lot of work to be done on getting us the support we need.”

Victoria Pedretti
  • She knows what it’s like to be a girl with ADHD, and having to fight for recognition and support. “As a neurodivergent girl who had a lot of masking and who had good grades and friends, a lot of the time it was difficult to get support because nobody believed that I was autistic or [had] ADHD. … It took 4 psychiatrists to get my ADHD and autism diagnosed.”
  • Even as a straight-A student, she was frustrated and lacked confidence. “I think the other thing was really difficult is that in academics, I was always a straight-A student, and constantly had to work super hard. … I felt a lot of self-pressure. I got so down on myself because I couldn’t seem to learn the material. I would get so frustrated about how my brain would work. I developed a lot of difficulties with my self-esteem and my ability to work because I prided myself on my brain and how it functioned. Little did I know that it was due to ADHD and autism combined.”
  • Helping others learn and grow helped her feel more confident in her own strengths. “I started tutoring at 14 to help kids in subjects I loved, both as a business and on a volunteer basis. That really helped me gain confidence in my own strengths, skills, and values.” 

The 🗝️ Takeaway: You’re not alone! Getting the support and resources you need to succeed is totally possible.

Vanessa Castañeda Gill, entrepreneur living with ADHD and ASD
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessacastanedagill/

Joyner Lucas

Joyner Lucas, American rapper
"Joyner Lucas" by thecomeupshow is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

With hits like “Ramen & OJ” and “Isis” and most recently, “Seventeen”, American rapper Joyner Lucas has fully embraced living with ADHD, using it to fuel his creativity. 

He even named his debut album after the condition! “If you listen to the album, it’s really all over the place. There’s a central theme in place but overall, it’s a really random album. That’s what ADHD is like — like you’re all over the place.”

 

Here’s Joyner’s advice for young people and aspiring artists that he shared during his 2022 interview with Billboard Media.

  • He encourages you to tap into your talents and strengths. “People are going to make you feel crazy, make you feel stupid, make you feel less than, make you feel like you can’t push through and become great because you’re different.”

“Use all your creativity and tap into your ADHD powers. You have something to bring to the world and they will love you for it.”

Joyner Lucas
  • He was diagnosed at age 8 and got in trouble a lot at school, but despite his difficulties, he let his creativity shine. “ADHD absolutely got me in a lot of trouble at school. I got put in these behavior disorder classes that kept me in a small room every day … Although I was facing difficulty in school, ADHD made me very creative.”

 

The 🗝️ Takeaway: Hone in on your strengths and talents. Push through challenges and setbacks to find success in the hobby or activity you love most.

We hope you found these celebrities as inspirational and motivating as we did! 


Want to learn more about how Thrivister can help you overcome your challenges with ADHD or weak EFS and find success? 👉🏼 Visit our website or get matched with a coach today.

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