Michael Phelps Opens Up About ADHD Struggles: A Teacher Told Me ‘I’d Never Amount to Anything’

He’s the most decorated Olympian of all time, but don’t think for a second that growing up as Michael Phelps was easy.

The 31-year-old swimming superstar —and new father — opened up about his struggles with ADHD in a new video for the Child Mind Institute‘s Speak Up for Kids campaign, explaining that a teacher once predicted that the Baltimore native would never succeed.

“I [saw] kids who, we were all in the same class, and the teachers treated them differently than they would treat me,” he says. “I had a teacher tell me that I would never amount to anything and I would never be successful.”

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Photo by Gage Skidmore