Whenever I hear someone describe Charlize Theron as a bitch, I think to myself, “Yeah, I could totally see that.” She doesn’t seem like an aggressively horrible mean girl or anything, she just doesn’t seem like a woman who aims to be pleasant or easy-going or likeable. There’s nothing wrong with being unpleasant or bitchy, obviously. But it always helps to have a little self-awareness. Charlize gave an interview to People Magazine in which she claims that she wasn’t popular when she was in school, and she was bullied from the age of 7 to 12. Ah, so the victim grew up to become the iciest bitch on the block? Nothing can touch your tender heart now, Charlize.
Playing a nasty schoolgirl in the new dark comedy Young Adult, Charlize Theron recalls her own high school days as the girl who never fit in, especially with the boys.
“I wore really nerdy glasses because I was blind as could be and the boys didn’t like [me],” the actress, 36, told PEOPLE recently in New York. “I didn’t have any boyfriends, but lots of crushes.”
Ignored by a boy she had a crush on, she says she had longed to be part of the in-crowd, causing her to do “crazy things.”
“I wasn’t in the popular crowd. There was a really popular girl at school and I was obsessed with her. I mean you would go to jail for that stuff today,” Theron says with a laugh. “I was in tears one day because I couldn’t sit next to her.”
She also says she was bullied by her classmates for her glasses and not having the perfect haircut and clothes.
“I actually got a lot of the mean girl stuff from the ages of 7 to 12. I was pretty much a mess in primary school,” she admits. “But I got that out of my system by the time I got to high school and was more immune to all of that stuff.”
Young Adult opens Dec. 9.
[From People]
Do you believe her? Or are you getting tired of every celebrity now claiming that they too were bullied and uncool when they were younger? I’m getting tired of it, personally. If you play the odds, a good chunk of these celebrities are lying about their awkward, uncool school years. Now, I’ll believe that Charlize wasn’t the most popular girl, and I’ll believe that she felt awkward, but for goodness sake, let it GO.
Now, that being said, I still really want to see Charlize as the popular-girl-turned-hot-mess in Young Adult:
Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.
My heart just bleeds for all these poor model-turned-actresses who suffered because they were not as gorgeous at an age where everyone looks like crap.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I know like 4 people who were gorgeous at 12. I had big glasses, a terrible overbite, freckles weren’t considered cute, and I was one of a handful of girls who didn’t have boobs. Cry me a river.
So tired of all of the celebrity bully stories. Most of the time when old pictures of them are published they still looked beautiful so I believe that many of them are full of it.
Boo the blooming-ass hoo!
oh come on! poor baby 🙂
If you look at her yearbook photo she had huge glasses and an unusual look, so yeah I believe she may have been bullied. We all remember how those girls in middle school were right? That stuff does tend to stick to you.
Has anyone noticed that those who were awkward/skinny/tall all turn out to be the most beautiful women? Peaking in middle/high school is certainly not a good thing (most of those women are overweight now). I think that is exactly what happened in Therons case, but don’t try to use it for sympathy, we ALL experienced some sort of bullying.
Well if you think about it, all these celebs were probably artsy in high school. The drama kids/music kids usually hung out together and were never considered cool. I don’t believe every celeb was unpopular in high school but I think the vast majority were.
I also am so tired of the celeb bullying stories, but at least she mentioned it in context of her role. Gaga makes me the sickest trying to be one of her Little Monsters and her bullying stories.
“There’s nothing wrong with being unpleasant or bitchy, obviously.”
Of course there is. There’s nothing right about being an insecure, bad-mannered individual. The world at large should not be exposed and forced to deal with such a person. And these kinds of people are the first and the loudest to yell when they don’t get the treatment they think they deserve.
How we deal with people is a reflection of how we are inside, our education, our history, everything. Being a shitty person is nothing to be proud of, encourage or excuse.
“But it always helps to have a little self-awareness.”
That’s not true self-awareness, that’s just an excuse for acting like a bully. Bad behavior is inexcusable for a sane, healthy adult.
Oh, and I’m interested in the movie. I have hopes for Diablo Cody and I like Charlize as an actress.
Oh honey. Your personal opinion on what a shitty person’s like is exactly that – your personal opinion, and by harping on them and casting your judgement on them you reveal the same shitty side of you, ultimately making you a hypocrite.
If someone’s an intolerable person, what YOU are going to do is to walk away and let that person be a shitty person in private, because they have every right to do that despite you not liking it.
Get off your colossal horse and and accept the fact that people are different and their difference may manifest in traits you find unpleasant.
I didn’t read that as preachy, I thought it was just acknowledging the fact that we’ve all got baggage of our own, so why should we start poking other people’s else’s with a stick? Obviously, we’re not all made for each other and we have better things to do than force all of the people to love, love love us (or else). It’s just that on many a thread the expression of our right to take hold of and maintain difference often crosses over into nastiness. As far as bringing up events that happened decades ago goes, the timing’s not great right now. Maybe the idea is that we all have a past, but that past doesn’t grant you carte blanche to continue demoralizing others when your time to resolve your issues has already started. You could also find this spate of revelations to be a cynical ploy to curry favour with your demographic. More than anything, if I were to be irritated about any of this (I’m surprisingly disintrested), it would be that, knowing that Hollywood is powered by the blood of the youth, that awkward stage must have lasted for all of a fortnight, so just come on with that mewling, because for all of the ills that a bullied person has to endure, a Hollywood career is a sweet settlemnt package. I don’t believe that stars should have to apologize for having the skills, assets or luck that led them to their successes, that’s lame and lameness didn’t pay those bills, your goods did that and it went well. I also think it would be patently ridiculous if every beauty queen movie star has to plan out every moment of her life so she doesn’t alienate her patrons, but when all of these stars rain down upon us with the Everywoman routine it just starts to ring hollow, and you think it’s really about time they fecked off with it… I dunno, I guess that’s my plan for world peace.
@ Danziger, How is @Cat a hypocrite? Some people go out of their way to make other people miserable, they get some kind of kick out of it, I guess. I’m thinking you’ve never had to work with the public before, well you can’t just ” walk away” from people all the time, life just isn’t like that.
Totally agree with what you said, there are some really awful people out there.Being a Class A bitch is nothing to be proud about. Thankfully most people are decent.
Yup. It makes me sad though, that in this world we’re living in, decent behavior is treated as if it’s an exception, not the norm. Not that it doesn’t deserve to be applauded, but I’ve felt for a long time that humans and society in general should have the “default” setting to nice.
@Jo ‘Mama’ Besser Pretty much in agreement with everything you said.
“it was just acknowledging the fact that we’ve all got baggage of our own, ”
And also that how we deal with it defines us as people.
“Maybe the idea is that we all have a past, but that past doesn’t grant you carte blanche to continue demoralizing others when your time to resolve your issues has already started.”
The way I see it, the past should be an explanation, not an excuse. And absolutely, bar the presence of a mental illness, there is a point all of us should try and take responsibility for our behavior. And damn it, we should succeed.
“…so just come on with that mewling, because for all of the ills that a bullied person has to endure, a Hollywood career is a sweet settlemnt package.”
I see your point. But also, I’ve found that some people are simply miserable to themselves and others no matter how much they have. It’s like they feed on their power over the people they treat badly. You can see this in costumer service jobs all the time. People come to solve their business, maybe it doesn’t work, they get angry, they start waling on the poor person whose job is to deal with them (but more often than not has no real power and little responsibility in regards to the issue).
There is no excuse for being an asshole. If you are, you should get a clue and apologise. You are not adding anything to the world that matters, otherwise. And as for ‘rights’, I haven’t seen your right to be an asshole in some declaration of independence.
Maybe it is your right to be an asshole. Then it’s my right wishing you would bugger off to a toxic waste planet out there where we don’t have to deal with your ‘rights’.
“a good chunk of these celebrities are lying about their awkward, uncool school years.”
No, I don’t believe that. I believe a great deal of their desire to be famous, beautiful and rich is just because of that. Always being bullied, being “the fat kid”, growing up poor and never been able to wear the latest trends so in order to prove their bullies wrong they want the recognition and adolation of complete strangers or their boss or whatever environment they’re in. Be it due to their looks, work ethic or status gained by themselves or through marriage. Lots of people act that way. Most of them just don’t go into showbusiness but strive hard their entire life shake off the negative things that happened before and to live up to their own twisted expectations because they are still insecure and still scared to be “weak” and get picked on.
Other people show their insecurities and can’t deal with themselves and are constantly in their own heads wondering what went wrong and some build walls around them and try to forget by working hard etc…
Just my thoughts…
Btw, she’s a known bitch with a lot of pizzaz =D. Love her!
I co-sign with everything that you said. I’d add to it, but you articulated it so well, I don’t need to.
🙂
This makes the most sense. We also must not forget that one person’s bitch is someone else’s best friend…
Hey guys.. remember, her mother shot and killed Charlize’s father in self-defense… I think she had bigger issues to deal with than the mean girl crowd when she was a pre-teen. She probably just answered these sort of questions for soundbites for her film.
Go Charlize— still one of the classiest and fiery actresses out there.
You’re forgetting she had a horrible childhood in rural South Africa- alcoholic violent father who her mother eventually shot to death in self defense during one of his drunken rampages.
In interviews I’ve seen of her she comes across as smart, kinda no-nonsense which could be read as impatient I suppose. I think she’s just had more life experience than most in Hollywood.
@bananapanda…you are exactly right! Thank you for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
OF COURSE her life when she was younger was AWKWARD. Prior to her mother killing her father, she had LOTS TO HIDE. I don’t think it’s like she could have brought her “friends” to HER HOUSE, what w/an alky dad & whatnot. With so much of that shit going on at home, I’m SURE she wanted acceptance of her peers at school…and I did see a pic of her in school w/the big ugly glasses. I’m sure she’s telling the truth…I am CERTAIN.
Congratulations, Kaiser!!! You really got the hens started clucking this morning!
She’s been through a lot. Yes she’s successful now, but she also had an abusive childhood and her mother killed her father in self-defense (I believe). We all have a little kid that lives inside of us regardless of who we are that carries our scars.
It kind of bums me out how people are so quick to be nasty to a celeb who really hasn’t done anything to deserve it unlike someone like Mel Gibson. I buy that Charlize was bullied. They had her old yearbook photo in a magazine once and while she was gorgeous she had these huge, awkward glasses on. She also had a ROUGH childhood. Her mom killed her dad and she grew up in lower class household in South Africa. She may have been pretty, but I could see getting bullied for that kind of stuff because bullies are sick people. Lastly, Charlize said 7 to 12. I am thinking of one of my closest friends, who is beautiful but was very, well almost strange looking until she went through puberty. A lot of people don’t grow into their looks until they are a teenager.
I had to look up her yearbook photo; I thought she looked adorable!
But I understand that kids can be cruel and it probably felt amplified given her problems at home. I’d actually buy that she was picked on.
Do I think she’s a bitch? Eh, probably not. She strikes me as very smart and no-nonsense. (:
sadly, all she has to do to be called a bitch IS to be smart and no-nonsense 🙁
well i was bullied as a kid/youth and it does hurt a lot when all your friends turn against you for no reason, for being different (i.e. being nerdy, wearing glasses) that’s why it is annoying when celebs glorify it to make people have sympathy for them. that said, at least charlene is talented. she was great in monster so i can’t hate
here’s a yearbook pic of charlize http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2009/02/before-they-were-famous.html
i can see her getting bullied…
that is so strange because i had a friend who looked exactly like that (bb charlene) and she was so well liked! hung out with the popular kids and was the class mascot. i know charlene’s story might be real nevertheless i thought that was mildly ironic looks-wise. anyway but i can totally see ryan seacrest being bullied.
I agree 100% w/ Cat: Being constantly downright mean-spirited to others is NOT an acceptable or excusable trait. Human cruelty is frightening and extremely detrimental to others, in particular those who must be around it on a regular.Judging someone as vicous has NOTHING to do w/them merely being “diifferent” from the people who one normally feels comfortable with; outright abusiveness/bullying to others is unmistakable as it is emotionally dangerous. Such behavior should not be condoned, much less accepted or promoted, in anyone.
I believe her. People can change quiet a bit. I mean, I was bullied from age 10 until about 16 or 17. Both by teachers and other students. I had braces, big glasses and wore ill-fitting thrift store clothes (it was the 90s). When I was 15 I shaved my head (punk stage but it did not make me cool since I wasn’t ‘pretty’).
Now people who meet are very surprised if they see a picture of me with no hair. They think because I now look conventional (contacts, make up, gym, nice clothes) that I was a cheerleader or something. I didn’t even have a boyfriend until I was 18 🙂