Diagonalizable matrix and distinct eigenvalues

Question

Suppose $A$ is some matrix and $S$ is a symmetric matrix. If I prove that $A$ is similar to $S$ (using a similarity transform), then are following statements true:

1. $A$ is diagonalizable
2. $A$ has distinct eigenvalues

Thanks in advance for helping out.

Answer 1

If we're working over $\mathbb{R}$, then you use the spectral theorem to show that $S$ is similar to a diagonal matrix $D$, but then similarity is an equivalence relation, so that $A$ is also similar to $D$, and thus diagonalizable.

Now, I'm reading into (2) to mean that $A\in M_n(\mathbb{R})$ and that it has $n$ distinct eigenvalues, which isn't true. The identity is symmetric and has just one eigenvalue ignoring multiplicity.