14 Famous People With ADHD

The most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, first went public about having ADHD in 2016.

In September of that year, shortly after the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Russian hackers breached the World Anti-Doping Agency’s database and leaked Biles’s medical records. It was revealed that Biles takes a prescription stimulant medication called methylphenidate (Ritalin) — a drug that’s traditionally banned for use among Olympians unless they receive medical clearance to use it while competing.

U.S.A. Gymnastics issued a statement in response, indicating that Biles had received a therapeutic-use exemption for her medication and had not violated any drug-testing regulations while competing.

Following the leak, Biles told her followers on X (formerly Twitter) that she had been taking medication for ADHD since childhood and has always followed competition rules related to medication use. In the same tweet, Biles emphasized her belief in clean sport.

Trevor Noah, former host of The Daily Show, opened up about his mental health on 60 Minutes. “Well, I think over the years, what I’ve come to learn, thanks to some great therapists, is my depression is created by a severe level of ADHD,” Noah told interviewer Lesley Stahl.

As for how having both conditions affects his daily life: “So for myself, it means that if I’m not careful in how I sleep, how I eat, how I — how I manage my routine, I can become overwhelmed and it can just feel like the whole world is just too heavy to bear,” he told Stahl.

Like Noah, many people with ADHD may have coexisting mental health conditions, such as depression, other learning disabilities, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

ADHD runs in Denver Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson’s family. More than half of his aunts, uncles, and grandparents on his mother’s side have the condition, Wilson told Deseret News.

First diagnosed as a child, Wilson said his ADHD made focusing on his college classes challenging. “I try hard, but it’s a struggle for me because of the attention deficit,” Wilson told Deseret News.

But, with football, it’s the opposite. He can focus intensely on the sport for hours at a time. “When it comes to football, I can do it all day,” the former New York Jets quarterback told Deseret News.

What Wilson described is likely a phenomenon called hyperfocus. Commonly considered an ADHD symptom, hyperfocus involves being able to focus on a stimulating task or activity so intensely that it blocks out everything else around you, per Cleveland Clinic.

In a piece he wrote for ADDitude Magazine in December 2019, Maroon 5’s lead singer, Adam Levine, described his experiences with ADHD. “It was hard for me to sit down, focus, and get schoolwork done,” Levine wrote. “My parents were patient and helped me, along with my doctor, to move forward with a treatment plan that worked.”

Then, as an adult, when Levine’s ADHD symptoms limited his ability to focus and follow through on writing and recording music, he went back to his doctor, who confirmed he still had ADHD as an adult.

Now, the “Girls Like You” singer aims to raise awareness of adult ADHD. “If you were diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, you might still have it now,” Levine wrote. “ADHD isn’t a bad thing, and you shouldn’t feel different from those without ADHD. Remember that you are not alone. There are others going through the same thing.”

In an interview with Collider.com, the multiple Grammy and Emmy award–winning singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor confirmed he has adult ADHD along with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This was only after interviewer Steve Weintraub noticed Timberlake adjusting recorders that were just put on the table in front of him and asked him if he has the type of OCD “where you have to fix everything.”

“I have OCD mixed with ADD,” Timberlake told Weintraub. “You try living with that.” (Attention deficit disorder [ADD] — a form of ADHD characterized by symptoms of inattention and distractibility — is now known as ADHD).

Since then, Timberlake hasn’t spoken on his conditions or how they impact his daily life. But having the two disorders together hasn't stopped his success. As mentioned, many with ADHD may have co-occurring mental health conditions.

Perhaps best known for playing Bruce Banner/Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Mark Ruffalo lives with ADHD, as well as dyslexia and depression, that went undiagnosed as a child.

“One of the things that was always very difficult for me was grade school. Feeling like I was strange and unique and freakish. I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere,” Ruffalo told Child Mind Institute.

His advice to his younger self? “There’s help and that there are ways to deal with it and to manage it and to overcome it,” he told Child Mind Institute.

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl revealed in 2020 that he’d been diagnosed with ADHD as a child.

“I hate to break it to you, but I was a terrible student,” Grohl said in a YouTube video called In Defense of Our Teachers. “Each day, I desperately waited for the final bell to ring so that I could be released from the confines of my stuffy, windowless classroom and would run home to my guitar.”

"It was no fault of the Fairfax public school system, mind you. It did the best it could,” he said. “I was just stubbornly disengaged, impeded by a raging case of ADD, and an insatiable desire to play music.”

He said that, although he tried his best to focus on his schooling, he ultimately dropped out of school in 11th grade to follow his dreams of becoming a professional touring musician. “Not advised,” Grohl said in the video. “I left behind countless missed opportunities.”

Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, who retired in 2016 as the most decorated Olympian of all time, learned to manage his childhood ADHD and turn his hyperactivity into a strength during early adulthood.

His mother, Debbie Phelps, said that his hyperactivity was noted by his teachers before he was diagnosed with ADHD at age 9, according to an interview with ADDitude Magazine, published in 2021. As a result, he began taking stimulant medication, which seemed to help him focus in school. After two years, he asked to stop taking it, according to an interview with The New York Times.

Debbie, also an educator, then helped her son learn the power of routine through participating in various sports, including competitive swimming. Debbie said swimming allowed him to release his energy in the pool.

As an adult, Phelps is focused on fatherhood and mental health advocacy. “I think the biggest thing for me, once I found that it was okay to talk to someone and seek help, I think that’s something that has changed my life forever,” he told People in April 2017. “Now I’m able to live life to its fullest.”

Singer Solange Knowles said that she was diagnosed with adult ADHD by two doctors before believing that ADHD was a real diagnosis, per BlackDoctor.org.

Knowles, who now identifies as disabled, said in a News24 article that after she accepted her diagnosis, she started seeing the normality of ADHD symptoms in Hollywood. “The symptoms seem to apply to everyone around me in the industry: loss of memory, starting something and not finishing it,” said the “Cranes in the Sky” singer.

In December 2017, she was recognized by RespectAbility as a role model for African American performers with disabilities.

The award-winning celebrity host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has talked openly about his childhood with undiagnosed ADHD and how getting on the right medication changed his life. Pennington told Access that he was a “mess academically” and “extremely disruptive” during his childhood.

“Back then, they didn’t even know what to call it,” he later told HuffPost. Finally, at age 17, he was diagnosed with ADHD.

Pennington, who played soccer in college, told Access he wasn’t exactly “stoked” about starting medication for a mental health disorder. But once he started, the first thing he noticed was that he saw the soccer game in a different way, and it all came together.

Pennington told HuffPost he sees a psychiatrist and takes medication. He also raises awareness about the signs of ADHD in children and living well with ADHD as an adult. “Even if you're on medication, you still have to treat your body properly and take care of yourself. The idea that it goes away or you grow out of it isn’t true,” he told Huffpost.

The political operative turned celebrity TV commentator has made his own experience with adult-onset ADHD public. Carville told Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) how the fast pace of politics complemented his abilities and “razor-sharp focus.” As mentioned, people with ADHD can become hyperfocused or deeply and intensely immersed in a task, goal, or idea, according to CHADD.

As Carville shows, this isn’t necessarily a negative thing. He was also able to channel his focus into completing his bachelor of science degree in 1970 and juris doctor degree in 1973 from Louisiana State University, and writing the best-selling memoir All’s Fair: Love, War and Running for President.

Carville has raised awareness about ADHD by giving speeches for organizations like CHADD.

Another celebrity who has made his adult ADHD public is baseball superstar Pete Rose. In his book My Prison Without Bars, Rose talks about his struggle with ADHD and how its symptoms may have exacerbated his gambling problems.

Rose speaks of a time when he didn’t even think of the consequences of gambling until he was caught illegally betting on baseball games while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds. Experts now know that making impulsive decisions without regard to consequence is a common ADHD symptom.

Rose told ADDitude Magazine in September 2021 that he didn’t write the book to get him off the hook for gambling, which he continues to do legally. “ADHD is an explanation, not an excuse,” he said.

Actress Michelle Rodriguez shot to stardom with her role on the hit television series Lost. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Rodriguez said she feared she would never achieve her dream of directing because she has ADD (now referred to as ADHD).

“I want to write and direct, but it’s not easy with ADD,” Rodriguez told Cosmopolitan. “I have a hard time focusing when I’m alone. I’m a scatterbrain, but I’m nervous of taking medication. I don’t really want to depend on anything to control my brain.”

She told Cosmopolitan for Latinas that she took a mental health break from acting after a series of “bad moments” — including several traffic violations — and shifted her focus to screenwriting.

According to RespectAbility, the Fast & Furious star has said her ADD led her to be expelled from five schools and to drop out of high school before earning her GED, pursuing an acting career, and proving that the symptoms and stigma associated with her diagnosis do not have to prevent you from achieving enormous success in your chosen field.

British food activist and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, a learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading, in childhood. In a video interview with Made by Dyslexia, Oliver spoke about the challenges he faced in school as a result of these conditions.

“Who said education is what we say it is? Like a couple of dudes from 500 years ago sort of set up the structure of it — English, maths, science. Okay, so if you’re not good at black-and-white and traditional academia … you have no value,” Oliver said. “So, for me personally, I’ve always been passionate since leaving school about different types of intelligence, and everyone has the ability to be brilliant.”

According to a tweet from the ADHD Foundation, Oliver advocates for healthy eating habits as a way to help manage ADHD symptoms.

The Takeaway

ADHD does not solely affect children. Many adults — including household names like Simone Biles, Trevor Noah, Justin Timberlake, Adam Levine, and more — have opened up about having and living well with the condition. When celebrities with ADHD talk about their condition, it helps decrease stigma and start conversations around mental health.

Additional reporting by Christina Vogt.