Penny Lancaster has told how she “got through” the experience of being bullied.
The Loose Women panellist, 48, and wife of rocker Sir Rod Stewart is backing an anti-bullying campaign.
Looking at a picture of herself as a child, she told TV show Lorraine: “(I feel) sorry for that little girl, feel sad for her.”
But she added: “I got through it, I became successful. I think a lot of young people can do the same thing. If they can get through it by talking to other people.”
As children across the UK head back to school this week, Penny Lancaster shares her experience of the vicious bullying she received at school. She's backing The Diana Award's campaign to help millions of young people affected like she was.#Lorraine pic.twitter.com/dyqCNTxY95
— Lorraine (@lorraine) September 4, 2019
She told the ITV show: “When I was younger, at junior school, I was a confident girl, everything was fine.
“When I moved to senior school that’s when the trouble started, on my first day at school…
“There are 10 million children about to start school… and over half of them are being bullied
“I was lucky that I had my parents to go home to, particularly my mum at home.
“When I got home from school I was able to talk to her very openly, share all my problems with her, get that off my chest.”
The model said: “In general, bullying happens because you’re different, for me I was not just taller than the girls, I was taller than the boys… People picked on me for being too smart, too tall…”
Lancaster said rubbers and pencils were thrown at her and in one incident when she walked home from school, “a boy on his bike rammed it into the back of my legs until they bled”.
Lancaster is backing the Diana Award’s campaign for every school to have some older pupils trained as anti-bullying ambassadors.
A video for the campaign previously showed Lancaster in tears as she recalled the bullying.