Can a Special Interest be a person?

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Yes. My current special interest is tennis player Denis Istomin.

I remember when Mick Avory of The Kinks was one of my special interests. I had hopes of being a gentle, sensitive and thoughtful person so he became a special interest that was tied in with The Kinks as a whole.

H.L. Cox, who used mathematics to greatly advance the scientific understanding of structures and materials was also an expert on Beatrix Potter.

However,
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Eleanor Rosevelt

Absolutely. Like a special interest in Elvis Presley for instance and all the albums and paraphernalia that goes with it. I've had a fascination with various historical figures.

It can be but you don't want it to be

Most of my special interests have been people or characters. I've never had a special interest in anybody I knew in person, however.

I was obsessed with Emilie Autumn in my early 20s, then I met her and got to have a long chat with her. After that my obsession/interest kinda died out.

I was born two days after a famous person. I always felt sorry for that other little boy who didn't get to choose his own kind of life, and despite that sense of kinship, have not taken advantage of all the ways that others invade his privacy.

I've always had a fascination with characters that I share the same autistic mindset with. The slow types of aspie characters like Sid from Flushed Away and Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes. :O)

Yes, though I've always found them troublesome when the interest is with a person in my everyday life. Obviously you can't get obsessed with a person and stalk them or be creepy, lol. But sometimes it can be hard to hide your feelings/fascination in their presence.

I was once obsessed with Andy Kaufman for 2 years. Not that I found him attractive, just interesting and oddly familiar. He's actually how I found out that I might have Asperger's. I saw his name associated with it and Googled the term. When the symptoms popped up, I was like "Ooooh boy, this hits close to home." Even printed them out to show my mom. That was when I was 18; I'm 32 now. So that fascination was actually useful in a roundabout way.

Definitely. I know of autistic people who are obsessed with certain celebrities, bands, football players etc.
I remember watching a documentary about an all-girls boarding school in the UK, exclusively for those on the spectrum. One of the girls there had an extreme fixation with boys and always thought about them. Whenever she developed a crush on someone, she'd download the same photo of him hundreds of times onto her iPad, and once texted her then-boyfriend loads of times in the space of an hour.
I think that there's nothing wrong with having an interest, but when it becomes to the point of obsession, like with the aforementioned girl, it does create a lot of problems.

Now I know why celebrity stalkers exist lol

I would think it would be more of an obsession (OCD).

It's normal if the person is some sort of famous figure; a lot of NTs also have their own favorite celebrities anyway. I don't think fascination with pop culture is "bad" (in that it'd attract some reactions) if its someone from the mainstream as opposed to someone more obscure. Mainstream could be passed as casual on the surface, despite you knowing everything about the person.

It's not okay if the person is a part of your everyday life though lol. I suffer from this a bit. I usually find myself interested ("obsessed") with people who had given me the slightest attention. It's even worst when I had chances to communicate with the person, but had blown it in one way or another, and consequently become obsessed with the screwed up situation and the person as well. I still find myself checking up on a guy from 3 years ago, even though I've rarely seen him in person since that one semester in school.

I read something called 'The Aspie Girls guide to (love or dating.) (Not sure, and dont remember the name of the lady who wrote it either, sorry) but I definately recognised my younger self. It describes how an aspie girl is susceptable to fixating on a boy to her detriment. I used to think that this was 'love', but it wasn't really, not in hindsite.

It's not stalking of they like you back.
This is not one of them.