Brendan Fraser was ‘crestfallen’ when son was diagnosed with autism
Brendan Fraser had a difficult time coping with his son Griffin Fraser’s autism diagnosis at first.
“When I found out my kid’s diagnosis at 22 or 24 months, I was crestfallen, to say the least,” the “Whale” star, 54, recently confessed on “The Howard Stern Show,” according to People.
“The first reaction that I had was, ‘I want to know how to fix this. What’s the cure? What does this mean?'”
Fraser said he was completely caught off guard by the diagnosis, and he felt like he had been “hit with a baseball bat in the back of the side of the head.”
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to turn out,” the “George of the Jungle” star continued.
“You blame yourself and you think, ‘My genealogy’ or ‘I smoked weed in college,’ you start blaming yourself over the reasons why.”
Fraser shares Griffin, now 20, with his ex-wife Afton Smith. The former couple also has two other sons: Holden Fraser, 18, and Leland, 16.
Fraser and Smith, 55, divorced in 2008, but the “Bedazzled” star doesn’t blame his oldest son’s developmental disability contributed to their rift.
“I paid more attention to my professional life than my personal one,” Fraser told Howard Stern. “That’s just me.”
“But with Griffin, all bets are off. Who cares what our problems are with each other? That doesn’t matter,” he added.
“It’s under a white flag, and we do anything and everything in support of this boy’s needs and his brother’s. That’s what I was able to commit to in the most meaningful way.”
Fraser said he now has a different outlook on Griffin’s autism and he “wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“This kid has the most joy onboard of anyone I know, and he happens to be related to me as my son,” the “Blast From the Past” star said.
“I want to know what he thinks is so gut-burstingly funny all day long, in a genuine way, he’s cracking himself up. He loves to go for a ride in the car. It doesn’t matter where you’re taking him.”
In November 2022, Fraser explained how Griffin helped him connect to his character in the “Whale,” sharing, “He doesn’t know what cynicism is. You can’t insult him. He can’t insult you. He’s the happiest person and is, in my life and many others’, also the manifestation of love.”