Survivor’s Eva Erickson Claps Back at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Claims About Autism

Survivor star Eva Erickson is standing up for her community.

After President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made several controversial claims about autism, including that it “destroys families,” at an April 16 press conference, the CBS competition series’ first openly autistic contestant pushed back.

“I’m Eva from Survivor 48,” the 24-year-old, who is competing on the ongoing season 48, began in a selfie video shared on her Instagram April 18. “Let me show you how wrong RFK Jr. is about what someone with autism can achieve in their life.”

In her video, Erickson included audio from the press conference in which Kennedy referred to a newly published Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that found that autism rates in U.S. kids has risen. Among his many comments were noting that there are autistic children who will “never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date.”