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10 Celebrities You Won’t Believe Were Bullied As Kids

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Ten of the biggest names in music, film and stand-up spent their childhoods on the receiving end of exactly the kind of treatment their fans would later come to them for comfort about.

Before the Grammys, the sold-out arenas and the Oscar campaigns, these ten entertainers were the kid getting shoved into a locker, the kid nicknamed for their weight, the kid told flat-out they’d never amount to anything. A new rundown from TheThings Celebrity, 10 Celebrities Who Overcame Bullying, walks through those years in specific, occasionally brutal detail — and traces a straight line from the torment to the work that made them famous.

• Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, was repeatedly shoved into lockers and beaten in hallways and bathrooms as the new kid in school, and once suffered a concussion from a classmate’s assault.
• Chris Rock faced severe racial harassment and physical violence as one of the few Black students at his school — abuse he has said ultimately drove him to leave high school.
• Kate Winslet was mocked for her weight and nicknamed “Blubber” by classmates who told her she’d never find success or romantic interest.

The Locker-Room Years

Eminem’s account is the roughest in the video’s rundown. As a repeated newcomer to different schools, Mathers became an easy target — shoved into lockers, jumped in hallways and bathrooms, and on one occasion beaten badly enough by a classmate to leave him with a concussion. That physical brutality, paired with the instability of his home life, has been cited for years as the raw material behind the aggression and vulnerability that run through his catalog. For more on how those years shaped him, the tragic details about Eminem lay out just how far that damage extended into his adult life.

Chris Rock’s story lands with similar weight. As one of the only Black students at his school, he was subjected to sustained racial harassment and outright physical violence from classmates — treatment severe enough that he ultimately walked away from high school rather than keep enduring it. It’s a detail that reframes the sharp, confrontational edge of his stand-up as something forged well before he ever stepped on a stage.

Mocked for Being Different

Several of the stories in the video hinge on kids being punished for simply not fitting in. Taylor Swift was ostracized by her middle school peers, who mocked both her fashion sense and her love of country music — isolation she has said became the direct fuel for her earliest songwriting. Justin Timberlake, growing up in Tennessee, was bullied and called names for choosing music, singing and art over sports. Rihanna dealt with persistent teasing and exclusion throughout elementary school over her skin tone and appearance.

Stefani Germanotta’s experience, before she became Lady Gaga, was arguably the most publicly humiliating of the group: classmates taunted her relentlessly for her theatricality and appearance, and in one widely cited incident, dumped her into a trash can. That kind of stories runs through a broader pattern the entertainment world keeps circling back to — for more artists whose public image hides a rougher backstory, musicians who are nothing like they seem is worth a look.

Classmates nicknamed Kate Winslet “Blubber” and told her she’d never find success or romantic interest — years before she became an Oscar-winning leading lady.

The Lasting Effects of Trauma

Winslet’s case is the one the video leans on hardest for its central point: kids who tell another kid they’ll never amount to anything are almost never right. Winslet has spoken about carrying that “Blubber” nickname and the predictions of failure for years before she became one of the most respected actresses of her generation. The video frames all ten stories the same way — not as sob stories, but as evidence that the harassment became fuel rather than an endpoint.

That’s the throughline TheThings Celebrity is selling: Swift turned isolation into song catalogs, Rock turned exclusion into a stand-up voice built on saying the uncomfortable thing out loud, and Eminem turned physical abuse into some of the most confessional writing in hip-hop. The video closes on the same message it opens with — kindness costs nothing, and the kid getting picked on in the cafeteria might be the next one everyone’s listening to.