"If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started." -Marcus Garvey
"When a bystander gets involved, there's a good chance that bullying will decrease or stop entirely." - Shanaya Fastje
"If you see something,
say something." -Shanaya Fastje
" When you're under attack, it's important to remember that a bully's words mean nothing. Never give hate any power." -Shanaya Fastje
"Being bullied in any form is not your fault." -Shanaya Fastje
"If your friends try to get you involved in bullying, find other friends." -Shanaya Fastje
“If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.” - Pat Riley
"when you see someone being bullied or are bullied yourself, you have a good chance to find out who you are-what you're really made of" -Shanaya Fastje
“Haters don't really hate you, they hate themselves; because you're a reflection of what they wish to be”
“Most haters are stuck in a poisonous mental prison of jealousy and self-doubt that blinds them to their own potentiality.” -Steve Maraboli
“Celebrate your victories! Be verbal about it. Haters will say you're bragging, but those who love you will celebrate with you.” -Steve Maraboli
“Behind every sucessful person lies a pack of Haters! I love my haters!”
― Gloria Tesch
“When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.”
“Some people won't be happy until they've pushed you to the ground. What you have to do is have the courage to stand your ground and not give them the time of day. Hold on to your power and never give it away.”
― Donna Schoenrock
“It gets better. It seems hard, you know, I think being different is always gonna be a tough climb. There's always gonna be people that are scared of it. But at the end of the day you give those bullies, those people, that are so ignorant, if you give them the power to affect you, you're letting them win. And they don't deserve that. What you're doing by being yourself is you're keeping it real, and you're being really brave.”
“Bullying builds character like nuclear waste creates superheroes. It's a rare occurrence and often does much more damage than endowment.”
― Zack W. Van
“Everyone I say stop bullying it is sad and tears someones heart apart and next thing they do is Suicide because they think that is the right next step!
If you are a Person who gets bullied find someone who will stop this! Don't just kill yourself for the other person to be happy because you are gone! They are just jealous of you and want to start problems and make you a troublemaker! Ignore those mean cruel evil people in you life and spend time with the nice caring sweet loving angels of yours!
Because bullying is a dumb and stupid waste of time!
Try to shake it off the mean hurtful stuff and keep on doing the right stuff that is going to help you become a better person and when i say a better person i mean more than a better person!
-Skye Daphne
“Like all bullies, they’re cowards underneath the swagger" --Edward Cullen”
― Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn
"Bullying is for people which dont have any confidence at all, so everyone which is being bullied, always remember; They are scared of you.You have something that they dont and thats what makes them bully you. Dont let any words from bullies affect you because they are the ones which need some confidence, not you."
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no ones definition of your life; Define yourself."
"When people don't like themselves very much, they have to make up for it. The classic bully was actually a victim first."
"Bullies need to make others feel insecure because they are insecure."
"If you turn and face the other way when someone is being bullied, you might as well be the bully too."
“I was viewed as a little bit of an outcast. I didn’t have one group of friends who I hung out with every single day. I would have friends on my football team, friends in drama, friends in video production, and I would hand out with different people. I know that wasn’t the normal thing to do in high school. The normal thing is to be ina group or be part of a clique. But for me, I love hanging out with different people and just having fun.”
— Taylor Lautner on Seventeen Magazine
‘There are two ways you can go with it. You can let it destroy you.. or you can use it as fuel to drive you: to dream bigger, work harder. I wasn’t invited to parties and I look back now and I’m so thankful that I was at home, playing the guitar until my fingers bled.’ -Taylor Swift
"I was bullied every second of every day in elementary and middle school...Obviously, people are going to bring you down because of your drive. But, ultimately, it makes you a stronger person to turn your cheek and go the other way." Selena Gomez
"I got made fun of constantly (in high school)! That's what built my character. That's what makes you who you are. When you get made fun of-when people point out your weaknesses-that's just another opportunity for you to rise above." -ZAC EFRON
"You will spend your lives trying to figure out how to keep others down because it makes you feel more important. There is a big world out there bigger than prom, bigger than high school. It won't matter if you were the prom queen or the quarterback of the football team or the biggest nerd in the school. Find out who you are and try not to be afraid of it."-DREW BARRYMORE
"I allowed myself to be bullied because I was scared and didn't know how to defend myself. I was bullied until I prevented a new student from being bullied. By standing up for him, I learned to stand up for myself." - Jackie Chan
"Society paints this picture where you have to have the longest hair and the thinnest body and you can't help but want to be that beautiful person you see on that picture. But then you have to start asking yourself the question - is that realistic for you? I began to ask myself those questions: Who am I working out for? Who am I looking good for? When I look in the mirror who do I want to please? Do I want to please people or do I want to please Mary first? So I began to want to please myself first. I can't please everybody. I can't be the slimmest girl. Be the best you that you can be. I was drawing negative people around me with my negative thoughts. You gotta change the way you think about yourself or else everyone's going to think whatever you're thinking about yourself. " -Mary J Blige
"You just have to hold your chin up and take it as a compliment that certain people dedicate that much time and effort to talk about you. I don't think I'll ever stop experiencing that, I have just gotten better at understanding and dealing with it." -AUDRINA PATRIDGE
"My rule is to just be who I am. Sometimes I don't take my own "advice, but I know that no matter what, I can be happy with continuing to go forward. I wake up in the morning proud of the man I'm becoming." -CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY
"There were bullies. I don't think there was just one. My mom was a teacher, and everyone thought I was goody two shoes (which I kind of was!) I got teased a lot for that. But that's in the past. It builds character and you learn from it." -BRANDON ROUTH
"Girls get mean when they feel threatened. Sharpay's feet get stepped on, so she gets vicious. Mean girls are the same way. I think they're very insecure. They look like they have it all together, but it's a mask. If you look at them and think they are this way or that way, you're actually buying into the stereotype and making it all worse." -ASHLEY TISDALE
"If you don't respect yourself the way you should - if you don't realize your own value and worth - then somebody else will see that and take advantage of it." -KELLY ROWLAND
"It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants." - MATT DAMON
"I was a mean girl. I had a gift for coming up with the meanest possible thing to say in any situation. Well, at my high school -- a huge public school in a suburb of Philadelphia -- there were a few girls who were kind of "famous." Everyone knew who they were dating and what parties they went to. They weren't the prettiest girls or the ones with money. They were just randomly anointed. I was an honor student, and I was in a ton of activities -- the newspaper, drama club, the tennis team ... My friends and I didn't really date or go to cool parties, so we made jokes about those who did. To be honest, we felt kind of rejected, and when you don't feel confident about yourself, you may look for flaws in somebody else to make you feel better. Looking back, I can see the mean-girl thing for what it is: a waste of energy. But that's not much comfort if you're the target. The hardest thing is to free yourself from caring what someone says about you. But it brings big freedom if you do it." -TINA FEY
"I was like any other teenage girl who wanted to be someone I'm not, and that was defined by what boys liked and what images of beauty the media perpetrated. Plus, when I was 7 years old, my ballet teacher said that I didn't have a dancer's body. That rang in my head as "I'm not normal; my body is wrong." It affected me in profound ways. I'm a strong girl, but I've always been a believer that when I can't manage, I surrender. I get myself to a place where someone can help me. I'm prouder of overcoming bulimia than of anything else I've done - more than having a number one record or selling out a concert. Celebrate yourself, embrace your struggle, and don't walk with shame, because nothing is as bad as you probably think it is. When I got through bulimia, I stopped living as a prisoner. Let your body fall into its natural state. Every minute you stay enthralled with a diet or get caught up in how you think you should look, you lose, because you're not enjoying life." -PAULA ABDUL
"Don't be preoccupied with looking for approval from other people. You're never going to be anybody but who you are. And who you are is greater than you imagine. The way that you think creates our reality. It's very powerful. I would say to a young girl who is feeling insecure about her looks to stop. Who you are is not the way you look; who you are is who you are on the inside. And there is not a mirror in the world that can show you that. It is beautiful, it is amazing, it is awesome.' -PHYLICIA RASHAD
Celebrities Who Were Bullied In School
Emma Watson
An Ivy League education proved to be less than magical for Harry Potter star Emma Watson, who reportedly dropped out of Brown University because she was bullied. Fellow students said that Watson was mercilessly taunted at school, with some classmates making comments like “Three points for Gryffindor!” whenever she answered a question in class. The 21-year-old actress and model announced in March that she would be taking a break from Brown, but claimed she was just trying to focus on her acting career. “I will still be working towards my degree… it’s just going to take me a semester or two longer than I thought,” Watson wrote on her website. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Watson is worth an estimated $32 million—so she should be laughing all the way to the bank.
Robert Pattinson
He may have won over millions of teenaged girls globally, but Twilight's resident vampire Robert Pattinson was not exactly on the good side of his classmates growing up in Britain. "I got beaten up by a lot of people when I was younger," the 23-year-old actor told Parade.com in March. "I was a bit of an idiot, but I always thought the assaults were unprovoked… I liked to behave like an actor, or how I thought an actor was supposed to be, and that apparently provoked a lot of people into hitting me." But Pattinson also experienced what it was like to have the shoe on the other foot—both literally and figuratively. "Someone stole my shoelaces once from my shoes," he told The Daily Express in August. "I still wear them and never put laces in them."
Sandra Bullock
Being raised by a German mother caused Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock to receive cruel comments from her classmates. As a professional opera singer, Helga Meyer dragged Bullock from their home in Virginia to her performances in Europe, leaving the young girl culturally clueless in her native country. "I'd come back [to school] from Europe and I looked like a clown compared to the cool way the other students looked and dressed. So I got my ass whooped a little bit," Bullock admitted in 2009. "Kids are mean, and the sad thing is that I can still remember the first and last names of every one of those kids who were mean to me!"
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise turned to Scientology in part due to childhood taunting. Young Tom struggled with reading, which did not escape his peers nor his school, forcing him into remedial classes and on the margin of the social circle. He moved from school to school—15 different ones over 12 years—but the small-for-his-age future actor still had difficulties academically and with his classmates. "Your heart's pounding, you sweat, and you feel like you're going to vomit," Cruise said of being bullied in 2006. "I'm not the biggest guy, I never liked hitting someone, but I know if I don't hit that guy hard he's going to pick on me all year. I go, ‘You better fight.' I just laid it down. I don't like bullies." At age 7, a school psychologist diagnosed him with dyslexia, which led to Cruise rejecting the study of psychiatry and his eventual decision to join the Church of Scientology. But school bullies were not his only problem—the star's father also knocked him down time and time again. "He was a bully and a coward," Cruise told Parade.com of his dad. "He was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you."
Howard Stern
Howard Stern suffered some serious flak for making fun of Precious star Gabourey Sidibe earlier this year, but perhaps the shock jock was just a victim of the cycle of bullying abuse. On his radio show in January, Stern discussed growing up in a largely black neighborhood in Roosevelt, Long Island, and then trying to fit in when he moved to a mostly white area later in his educational career. The mama's boy said his parents claimed to move out of Roosevelt to Rockville Center for him, but Stern did not find his new surroundings particularly comforting. "Thanks to my overprotective mother, I was the target of every bully in the neighborhood," he wrote in his book Private Parts. "A fat neighborhood kid named Johnny, who used to blow his nose into his Italian ices, then eat them with a wooden spoon, used to beat me up so regularly that my parents made me go to judo school to learn to defend myself."
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus may have the best of both worlds now, but that was not always the case. In her 2009 autobiography, the now-17-year-old pop star revealed how she survived her unofficial un-fan club in her pre-teen years growing up in Tennessee. "The girls took it beyond normal bullying. These were big, tough girls [known as] the Anti-Miley Club," Cyrus wrote in Miles to Go. "I was scrawny and short. They were fully capable of doing me bodily harm." And they seemingly tried to—shoving her into a bathroom during class and locking her inside on one occasion. "I spent what felt like an hour in there, waiting for someone to rescue me, wondering how my life had gotten so messed up," Cyrus wrote of the incident. Plus, there were also instances of verbal abuse, often directed at her "Achy Breaky Heart" singing father, Billy Ray. "Your dad's a one-hit wonder," she recalled one classmate saying. "You'll never amount to anything—just like him."
Michael Phelps
Before he became a record-breaking Olympian with a collection of gold medals to his name, Michael Phelps was a kid with unwieldy limbs, "sticky-out ears," and a lisp that caused him to be teased by his peers. Phelps has openly discussed his "deep hurt" over bullying early in life. He also dealt with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, for which he spent two years on medication. A teacher even told Phelps' mother, "He's not gifted. Your son will never be able to focus on anything." These days though, Phelps' trainer calls him the "motivation machine," explaining, "bad moods, good moods, he channels everything for gain."
Chris Rock
Apparently, there was a time when everybody really did hate Chris Rock. The comedian has talked openly about his struggles as the only black student in his New York school, saying, "I got beat up just about every day. I got called n***** every single day. I got kicked and whatever. What happened to me then, today kids come to school with guns and shoot everybody—but I couldn't find a gun back then." Clearly still haunted by the painful words of his youth, Rock turned the experience into comedy with his show Everybody Hates Chris, which actually inspired one of his former teachers to write Rock an apology letter for his less-than-pleasant elementary school days.
Christina Aguilera
Before joining her showbiz peers like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake as a cast member on the New Mickey Mouse Club, Christina Aguilera's dreams of stardom rendered her an outsider with her classmates. "I would get a lot of cold shoulders because there was just no way they could relate to what I loved to do," Aguilera has said. "You know, it's not really normal for a child to just want to be in front of the camera and on stage. It's not something that all kids want to do—they want to play in the playground. You know, it was hard for me to relate to other kids because I didn't have the same interests. I was even more the oddball, I felt, because of that." After joining Mickey Mouse Club, Aguilera, who once had her tires slashed by classmates, says, "it was really exciting for me to almost feel I'd found my kind."
Bill Clinton
Long before Bill Clinton became our 42nd president, he struggled with self-image and body weight. During his fight against childhood obesity, the former president noted that his love for fast food was a likely contributor to his need for his September 2004 quadruple bypass. "I realized that one more time I've been given another chance, and I wanted to make the most of it," said Clinton. "I was the fat band boy" wearing unfashionable jeans. During a YMCA dance, an older boy teased Clinton for donning carpenter's pants. When Clinton jawed back, the boy, who stood a whopping 6-foot-6, punched him in the jaw. Clinton may have come out of it with a sore face, but after taking the hit like a champ, standing his ground, and earning the respect of the older student, the politician also gained a lesson in perseverance.
Tiger Woods
On Tiger Woods' first day of kindergarten in 1981, the future golf stud was tied to a tree and taunted with racial slurs by older schoolboys. While that incident seems to be the only one of such a level of severity, Woods also had to cope with a stuttering problem. "It was very difficult, but I fought through it. I went to a school to try and get over that, and I just would work my tail off. And I would talk to my dog," said Woods on 60 Minutes. Sometimes, we all just need a good listener.
Demi Lovato
Girls will be girls. And, as Demi Lovato knows, they can be all too cruel. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show, shed opened up about the bullying she endured in 7th grade – teasing that eventually prompted her to be home-schooled. "I never really understood why [I was being bullied] until looking back," she says, noting that she was already a working actress – which made her an easy target. "I had a different lifestyle then everyone else."
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet still gets pestered for her fluctuating feminine figure, but in school it was apparently much worse, with kids calling her “Blubber.” The actress said, “I was bullied for being chubby… I was the girl that people would always say, ‘Ah, it’s such a shame, because you’ve got such a pretty face.’” That’s why the “I can lose weight but you’ll always be ugly” comeback is such a zinger.
Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart might be hugely popular nowadays, but she wasn’t quite as beloved in high school—she’s told the press that she got bullied by her peers: “I’m glad I could do those films and I was glad to leave school. I couldn’t relate to kids my own age. They are mean and don’t give you any chance. I was never the type of girl to be walking around talking about acting, so in the beginning I didn’t get hassled, until someone realized. I tried to play it down but I got, ‘Oh, she’s such a bitch.’ Since I was 14, I continued my education via correspondence while concentrating on my career. The day I did the graduation scene in ‘Eclipse,’ I had just finished high school myself the week before.”
Christian Bale
Christian Bale starred in “Empire of the Sun” when he was 13 years old, but instead of an instant entourage, he was instantly hated on in school. Bale says, “It was not a great time. I was a victim of bullying and had other kids kicking and punching me every day. It was an early lesson in how making a film can set you apart. If you don’t want to live with the consequences then don’t make the film. But that didn’t help at the time. I was confused about other people’s reactions to me, both good and bad. It can mess anyone up.” I bet they got way nicer once “Newsies” came out and they realized what an awesome singer Christian is!
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba seems like the nicest person ever, which is probably why she was tortured in school. The actress claims she was shy and awkward and had to be protected by adults: “I was bullied so badly my dad used to have to walk me into school so I didn’t get attacked ... I’d eat my lunch in the nurse’s office so I didn’t have to sit with the other girls.
Rosario Dawson
Rosario Dawson might be all grown up and glamorous now, but apparently it took longer for her to grow up than most. When asked if she was bullied as a kid, the actress said, “Absolutely. It was always about how I physically looked. Growing up, a lot of the girls in my school started developing quickly. My mom has a very pronounced bust line and I was a late bloomer. One of my worst memories is getting all dressed up for a school activity and having the girls pick on me because I was flat chested. I was very much a tomboy for a long time.”
Megan Fox
It’s hard to feel sorry for people as pretty as Megan Fox, but it’s comforting that she also endured high school harassment. She says, “I was bullied and it’s hard, you feel like high school’s never going to be over. It’s four years of your life and you just have to remember the person picking on you had their own problems and their own issues. And you’re going to be OK ... usually bullies are the most insecure.” Doesn’t it seem like high school was way longer than four years?
Chad Michael Murray
"I had my two front teeth knocked out by a sixth grader in first grade. He picked me up and jacked me in the mouth. My house got egged, and all that stuff that happens to you when you're growing up with people who don't understand what's going on.. I hated high school, to be honest. I enjoyed the educational part of it; my teachers allowed me to be creative. But I didn't have any friends, because I didn't fit in.. I thought past high school to what I wanted to do."
Chad Michael Murray
"I had my two front teeth knocked out by a sixth grader in first grade. He picked me up and jacked me in the mouth. My house got egged, and all that stuff that happens to you when you're growing up with people who don't understand what's going on.. I hated high school, to be honest. I enjoyed the educational part of it; my teachers allowed me to be creative. But I didn't have any friends, because I didn't fit in.. I thought past high school to what I wanted to do."
Justin Timberlake
"If you didn't play play football, you were a sissy. I got slurs all the time because I was in music and art . . . I was an outcast in a lot of ways . . . everything that you get picked on or you feel makes you weird is essentially what's going to make you sexy as an adult."
Mischa Barton
"I just wasn't part of the popular clique," she has said. "I was on the outside of it and that was when I was the most self-conscious... I didn't dress cool enough, and I didn't have enough money."
Taylor Lautner
Taylor Lautner dealt with the same. “Because I was an actor, when I was in school there was a little bullying going on,” he told Rolling Stone. “Not physical bullying but people making fun of what I do ... I just had to tell myself I can’t let this get to me. This is what I love to do. And I’m going to continue to do it.”
Daniel Radcliffe
“I wasn’t the most popular kid because they wanted to give me a lot of c**p and I wasn’t willing to take it,” the 19-year-old told The Mirror. The young star also said he had a real fight once when he tried helping a kid in school. “I was 14, he was 19. There’d been a bit of animosity between us already and he was being horrible to a kid I knew, so I pulled him off this other bloke and he punched me in the face,” he said.
Eminem
"I was beat up in the bathrooms, in the hallways, shoved in the lockers -- for the most part for being the new kid," Eminem, born Marshall Mathers, told Cooper about getting bullied in grade school, mainly because he moved around so much that he was a lot of times the new kid on campus.
What helped Eminem overcome this tough phase of his life, though, was rapping. "I found something.. 'yeah, this kid over here may have more chicks or better clothes, but he can't do this like me,'" he recalled about when he began to rap. "I started to feel like, 'Maybe Marshall is getting a little respect.'"
"Respect" is what he's been searching for his entire career, Eminem said. "It might sound corny," he sid, "but I felt like a fighter coming up."
The segment is appropriately timed, especially since so many young kids, particularly LGBT youths, have committed suicide lately because of bullying in schools. Although Eminem is not Gay and has actually in the past been condemned for seeming be anti-Gay (something he says he isn't during the interview), I think the message will resonate with many kids contemplating an easy way out. Even the biggest of stars have gone through bullying and survived it and, furthermore, have come out on top -- so can you.
"I don't want to go overboard with it, but I do feel if I can help people that have been through similar situations, why not?" Eminem said in reference to his latest "Not Afraid" track.
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