When Amy Schumer met her now-husband, Chris Fischer, she saw some signs that he might be a little different.
“... We went for a walk, about a year ago, and I fell,” Schumer recalls in "Glowing," her new Netflix special. “And, kind of, nine out of 10 people would go, ‘Oh my God, are you OK?’ Right? Maybe more like 10 out of 10 people (would say), ‘Oh my God, are you OK?’ But instead, my husband … kind of froze and became a lighthouse, opening and closing his mouth.”
Schumer demonstrated what Fischer’s face must have looked like for the crowd, looking kind of timid and shocked at the same time.
“And I remember laying on the ground, looking up at him, and I wasn’t mad,” Schumer said. “I just thought, ‘huh!’ A lot of ‘huh!’ moments, you know?”
She married Fischer, a chef and cookbook author, in February 2018. The couple are now expecting their first child. Fischer has high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Schumer devoted a few minutes of her special to the topic.
She opens the discussion by saying, “I have to start this over because I really want to get this right.” She goes on to carefully explain: “Because I love him very much. And my husband was diagnosed with what used to be called Asperger’s. He has autism spectrum disorder. He’s on the spectrum.”
Schumer continues, “And once he was diagnosed, it dawned on me how funny it was, because all of the characteristics that make it clear that he’s on the spectrum are all of the reasons that I fell madly in love with him. That’s the truth,” she said to a huge round of applause and cheering.
As for why she decided to come out so publicly with her husband’s diagnosis, Schumer recently said on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” that the couple wanted to share their experience, which has been a good one, overall.
"That's why we both wanted to talk about it, because it's been totally positive," she told Meyers. "I think a lot of people resist getting diagnosed and even some of their children because of the stigma that comes along with it."
"The tools that we've been given has made his life so much better and our marriage and our life more manageable," Schumer said. "I just wanted to encourage people to not be afraid of that stigma. … I think there are a lot of people with autism who go undiagnosed, when I think their life could be better if they got those tools.”
Well said!
Here are some other lines from the comedy special that we enjoyed.
“He says whatever is on his mind. He keeps it so real, you know? He doesn’t care about social norms, or what you expect him to say or do, like, you know, if I say to him, like, ‘Does this look like s---?’ He’ll go, ‘Yeah, you have a lot of other clothes. Why don’t you wear those?’”
Schumer kinda gave an “OK then” nod, strolling the stage.
“But he can also make me feel more beautiful than anyone ever has in my whole life. Yeah. It’s true.”