Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPf2MTnTBc0
the jurogan experience the perils of becoming famous when you're young are well known right it's no one is really there's made a small handful of people that have made it through unscathed it's a it's a weird way to grow up because everybody else grows up trying to prove their worth or trying to find their place in life and trying to you know get people to understand who they are you grow up where basically most people who run into you know who you are before you know who they are and they're they're already like kind of freaked out that you're there and they'll do anything for you and they want to see you and they want to see you perform they just want to see you sing and talk and it's a very strange way to grow up right what did did you at any point in time have this feeling like hey maybe this isn't the best way to grow up so i grew up in texas dallas texas um i keep forgetting we're in texas dallas um but i i grew up you know i went to public school except for the one year that i homeschooled on barney and friends and i experienced um bullying pretty bad while i was there and so i ended up leaving public school and i went into a really depressive state for a period of time i didn't you know when you're 12 and you're bullied that's your social life like your social life is everything to you and so um i felt like i didn't have much to look forward to anymore except for my music and music kind of kept me alive so it's not that like i ever looked at the industry as um this kind of weird burden on my teenage years or whatever like yes it it is weird in hindsight but i looked at it as it actually kind of saved my life at times because it gave me something to live for and i knew that if i stayed in texas that um i wouldn't make it out alive the bullying was that bad yeah the bullying was that bad but this just they knew that you had been on
television already so was that part of the reason why they were bullying you so when i asked them like why are you guys so it all started with like i wrote a note you know you're in seventh grade you're passing notes back and forth and i called someone this other girl like called her annoying and said she was being a [ __ ] right and then that escalated to by the end of the day i it was that like scene in the movie where you walk in the lunch room and everyone just looks at you because the the thing was is like the girls that i wrote that about were the popular girls and so it just like anyone who wanted to be popular took their side and everyone just was like i don't know so i had a concert that weekend on a military base and i went to like vegas for the the concert or something and when i came back it just had increased and so when i asked them like why are you guys doing this i wrote a note we all write notes in school we're in seventh grade that's what we do and they were just like well you're a [ __ ] and you're fat and so i internalized what they were saying and that's when my eating disorder developed and i couldn't i mean i wasn't a [ __ ] um i believe you yeah [Laughter] it is so crazy how children have this instinct to pile on to people like that though it's bullying is it's more common than not right well and you have to understand is my generation was like the first with social media so what i was really um dealing with was the cyber bullying of everything it wasn't i had wished that someone had tried to fight me because i'm a fighter and so i would have thrown down but they were coming at me with words that scarred me emotionally for years to come and ended up you know scarring me for the rest of my life um and i i kept saying to people who
didn't understand cyber bullying like i wish that someone had just hit me and gotten it over with because at least i wouldn't have to live with those words that they said to me for years and that's what was the hardest part um was the emotional trauma of like of all of it and which made it hard to meet fans my age because i had just been bullied three years before by people my age when i was meeting fans i was excited to meet them but at the same time i knew what they were capable of so i had this weird like battle in my head every time i'd meet someone my age of like i'm so appreciative of you but i'm also terrified of what you're capable of wow so you just had a wall up for any young kids that reminded you of the girls who bullied you which was my fan base at that time and so that was always in my mind and and i actually never even told anybody that really because i didn't think it was important i also felt guilty for feeling that way towards my fans did you discuss the bullying with anybody at the time oh yeah i discussed it with my mom she took it we went i mean she came to the school and tried to tell them what was happening and they were like if it's cyber bullying we can't do anything about it it doesn't happen on school grounds so no punishment really took place and i mean they had a suicide petition that they passed around the school and tried to get people to sign it so that i would kill my like it's it gets gnarly and and girls can be mean yeah middle school girls can be mean and so i talked about it a lot and then i decided that was really my first taste of activism work was being an advocate for anti-bullying and i remember i like decided to start talking about it and i felt like i felt some purpose and all of a sudden my career wasn't about my talent anymore have you ever run into those girls so i haven't run into them but i did
make a phone call to like the main girl that bullied me because when i got sober a part of the program they teach you to on your ninth step as you make amends and when you do your resentments um or you you make a list of resentments you write down everyone you've had a resentment against your entire life at least this is the way i was brought through the steps and her name was on it and when they had me go through what was my part and i was like well i put the name down that she was a [ __ ] so like i guess i did play a part in that and when i looked at everything i was like you know i can't look back at that situation and and say that i was innocent so i went to own my part but a part of the step was calling and making amends and so i called her and she was like oh my gosh i can't even believe you remember who i am and i was like [ __ ] you ruined my life like are you [ __ ] kidding me [Laughter] and i was so i just like sat there and was like cool i think this concludes the end of this phone call i'm sorry and i wish you well was she did you get past that did you talk to her like she was so thrown off that i even remembered who she was after becoming famous and a celebrity that like she wasn't interested in talking about what had happened when i was 12 or when we were 12. what did she want to talk about like what's it like to be you like how are you like oh my god i miss you so much i hope you're well and i was just like [Laughter] god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change isn't it it's so strange people that are not famous for some reason they think that people who are famous are not people yeah you become a famous person you're
not a person it's like you have like a shield around you you you like all your emotional scars or all of your past right you know for some reason that doesn't it doesn't affect you you're in a castle somewhere covered in gold right yeah yeah they think that like that's probably how she felt when she was talking to you like how do you remember me like you're in a castle covered in gold and so i'm hearing this thinking like i've i just got out of treatment for an eating disorder like you don't think i remember you you were the first person to ever call me or not the first but like you were the first mean girl to call me fat like of course i remember you it was just wild but you know you look back at times like that and everybody like those were my teachers at that time like we all have teachers yeah and and people and so even though i i used to resent that person for many years i look at that time in my life and i'm like well i needed to learn those lessons then and um is what it is can't change the past it's a painful lesson that hangs with you for that long but did you feel a large weight lifted off you after having that conversation with her i know no felt the same way no it actually it made me more upset because i was like how does someone who literally altered the course of my life not that i'm blaming her for my eating disorder i would have probably developed one anyways because my mother had one and so i was i was looking at negative food behaviors and that's all i knew and so when someone called me fat i knew exactly what to do now like i said i don't blame her for it but um i couldn't believe that she didn't think i remembered who she was after what she said made me decide to stop eating yeah i just but what i said earlier i just don't think that someone like her ever thinks that someone like you even
has normal feelings yeah totally and a lot of people still think that about celebrities catch new episodes of the joe rogan experience for free only on spotify watch back catalog jre videos on spotify including clips easily seamlessly switch between video and audio experience on spotify you can listen to the jre in the background by using other apps and can download episodes to save on data cost all for free spotify is absolutely free you don't have to have a premium account to watch new jre episodes you just need to search for the jre on your spotify app go to spotify now to get this full episode of the joe rogan experience