Rihanna
Rihanna has been ruling the radio airwaves for years, since we first heard “Pon De Replay” in 2005. The “Umbrella” singer did not always have the confidence of a pop star, however. As RiRi told Allure in 2008, she was bullied by school classmates who thought the she was “too white.”
“I didn’t understand,” the artist said. “I just knew I saw people of all different shades and I was light. Now I’m in a much bigger world.”
Christian Bale
Academy Award-winner Christian Bale starred in his first major film role, Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun at just 13, but that did not stop fellow classmates from treating him like scum. The actor says that while growing up in Wales he “took a beating from several boys for years. They put me through [crap], punching and kicking me all the time.”
Now, we like to imagine that he channeled the anger his childhood enemies caused him for his performance as Batman.
Mila Kunis
Today, people swoon over the deep, dreamy eyes and pouty lips of Mila Kunis, but the actress claims that those desirable features made her a laughing stock at school.
“I used to come home crying, ‘Why do I have big eyes?’ And my parents were like, ‘You’re crazy!'” she told Britain’s OK Magazine. “I’ve learned it wasn’t a bad thing to be picked on because when you’re little is seems awful, like it’s the end of the world. I grew into my face.”
It is clear that the Ukrainian native no longer faces such criticism. Her husband, Ashton Kutcher, certainly thinks she is to die for.
Chris Rock
He is one of the most beloved and successful comedians of all time. When it comes to his childhood, his sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris” is not a misnomer.
Rock told BlackDoctor.org,”I was the only black boy in my grade for most of the time. I was a little guy, too, a skinny runt.” He also told James Lipton on “Inside The Actor’s Studio” about how classmates regularly “kicked my [butt], spit in my face, and kicked me down the stairs.”
However, Rock is not really one speak entirely negatively of bullies, but cites bullying as what made him who he is today, helping him develop his quit wit and motivating him into a life of success. Rock adds, “Put the most successful men and women in the world in one room, and ask them to put their hands up to see which ones were bullied. Most of ‘em!”
Jennifer Lawrence
With a personality as down-to-earth as Jennifer Lawrence, the Oscar-winning actress does not sound like a perfect target for bullies, but the harassment was so severe for her that she was forced into changing elementary schools more than once. Middle school was different story, though.
The Hunger Games star recalled to The Sun a time when a girl asked her to hand out invitations to a party that she was not invited to, so she “hocked a loogie on them and threw them in the trash can.” Lawrence added, “Don’t worry about the [witches] — that could be a good motto, because you come across people like that throughout your life.”
Michael Phelps
It is an unspoken but widely accepted rule that you don’t want to mess with someone with 23 gold medals. However, long before swimmer Michael Phelps became one of the most celebrated Olympians of all time, he was messed with on the daily.
According to a profile by the Daily Record, Phelps was often dissed for his “sticky-out ears,” lisp, and long arms. Of course, those who taunted him are force-feeding their words given what those long arms have done for his career.
Justin Timberlake
Some celebrities’ success is the result of late blooming. For instance, Justin Timberlake was not always the multimillion dollar musician, actor, and heartthrob that the world has come to know and love.
JT has admitted that his “terrible acne and weird hair” made the future husband of Jessica Biel very unpopular with the ladies and a frequent target for bullies back in school. Looks like all it takes is some Clearasil, a visit to the barber, and a record deal to fix that problem.
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus can handle gossip and hate speech from tabloids as well as she does thanks to the torturous treatment she faced from a group of young girls referred to as the “Anti-Miley Club.” The musician and former “Hannah Montana” star wrote about the experience in her 2009 memoir, Miles To Go.
“The girls took it beyond normal bullying. These were big, tough girls,” Cyrus writes. “I was scrawny and short. They were fully capable of doing me bodily harm.” She goes on to describe how they would tease her father’s one-hit wonder status and mentions one particularly harrowing experience in which the “Club” locked her in the school bathroom for roughly an hour.
Donald Glover
The Lion King and “Atlanta” star Donald Glover (also known to the world of hip hop as Childish Gambino) is one of the most innovative (or, as some would say, “weirdest”) creators in the business. He may not mind that label now, but it burdened him early in life.
“When I was in 7th grade, I got bullied so bad,” Glover recalled on “George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight” in 2011. “I got called the F-word, the N-word, all the time, and I felt so bad about myself. And I look back now, and none of those problems mattered at all… All the things that make you a popular person in 7th grade make you a horrible human now.”
Taylor Swift
Before becoming the pop star that every teenage girl wanted to be, Taylor Swift was unfairly treated by some middle school “friends” who dumped her because “they didn’t think I was cool or pretty enough, so they stopped talking to me,” as she told Teen Vogue. She was also made fun of for her interest in country music.
Now, Swift is living in a big old city, but her bullies don’t even remember that they were mean. She mentioned a time when she returned to her middle school’s city and those same mean girls “showed up, wearing my T-shirts and asking me to sign their CDs.”
Swift also added that she almost feels she should thank those mean girls for being a key contributor to paving the way for her successful music career. She said, “Really, if I hadn’t come home from school miserable every day, maybe I wouldn’t have been so motivated to write songs.”
Tom Felton
Who knew that one of the most feared “bad boys” of Hogwarts was a victim of cruel classmates in real life? In fact, Tom Felton claims his role as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise is key to what made him a target.
“I would miss months of school and then return with bright blond hair,” Felton told UK publication The Daily Mail in 2010. “Needless to say, there was bullying. I wasn’t beaten up daily, but there was name-calling and jealousy… You have to bear in mind that Harry Potter wasn’t cool. I wasn’t part of the Terminator franchise. But in some ways I am grateful because I would rather that than be sheltered my whole life and not realize people like that were out there. I feel like I have the last laugh.”
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is a Golden Globe-winning actress, a Grammy and Oscar-winning musician, and one of the most generally talked about people in pop culture. No one is more surprised by her success than a few cruel fellow New York University students.
While Gaga (née Stefani Germonotta) was still an aspiring artist attending NYU, a few students found her to be an untalented attention seeker and proudly declared their disdain by creating a Facebook group entitled “Stefani Germanotta, You Will Never Be Famous.” The group still exists and updated every few months or so, but Gaga most likely never has time to check it, given all the interviews, photo shoots, executive meetings, and recording sessions she has to attend.