Millie Mackintosh's school bullies tried to befriend her once she became famous.
Millie Mackintosh
The 29-year-old reality TV star shot into the limelight in 2011 when she appeared on the E4 show 'Made in Chelsea' and she has admitted some of the people who used to torment her at school and made her life a misery reached out to her afterwards because they wanted to get in on her then-new celebrity status.
Speaking in the anti-bullying charity The Diana Award's Back2School campaign, she explained: "I don't really use Facebook socially anymore but when I actually went on TV there were people coming out the woodwork and suddenly being really friendly, it made me laugh. I thought, 'Well things were quite different a few years ago.' They're definitely not by best buddies now."
And, although she found it soul-destroying at the time, Millie believes the bullying she went through as a youngster has made her a "stronger" person today.
She said: "I think it has made me stronger because bullying doesn't necessarily end with school, you experienced bullies in lots of different stages of life.
"I learnt how to handle it and how to deal with it early on. I got through it, I survived it and I felt much better once I'd left school. I think it's different for everybody but I was lucky had a real supportive family."
However, the blonde beauty believes bullying is a lot easier to do nowadays because of the growth of social media and people hiding behind their computers.
She added: "I think social media has made it much more accessible, anyone can be a target, but it's a very cowardly way of bullying. There's no way you'd say that stuff to that person's face. It's much harder to get away from it."
Tagged in Millie Mackintosh