Actress Gabourey Sidibe doesn’t waste her time or energy entertaining online bullies. She usually ignores them or blocks them into oblivion.
The 33-year-old Empire star recently appeared on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, where she offered advice to the mom of a 12-year-old girl who is bullied in school because of her size.
The girl, who is a junior high school student, is teased because she is overweight.
“Junior high school is a battlefield,” said Gabourey, who recently embarked on a weight loss journey that saw her drop 100 pounds.
“Junior high school sucked for me. High school sucked for me,” she added. “I didn’t get good with myself until I was like, 25 years old.”
Gabourey said she coped with bullying by focusing her energy on something she liked to do, such as singing.
She said singing gave her the confidence she lacked, and brought her new friends.
“I knew every song on the radio, so I sang a lot,” she explained. “And it was really weird cause like older classes – like the senior girls – would come find me in school and have me sing their favorite song, which is weird. My mom’s a singer – so it’s not surprising that I have a voice. And that’s kind of what I found that I liked about myself.”
Gabourey told the mother that her 12-year-old daughter should find something that interests her and focus on that.
“Get her in a class or something,” she said. “Have her find something that she loves about herself. As long as she builds herself and she finds her own self-love – no matter what anybody says about her – it’ll hit her and fall off of her.
“Tell her to hold strong. Tell her to hold on, but it’ll be worth it, honestly,” she said.
That’s excellent advice! Your auntie coped with bullying in school by taking up photography, which later branched into blogging.
