Charlize Theron Was Bullied for Being a Nerd

It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when Charlize Theron was neither considered beautiful nor popular. In a new interview, the actress recalls her teen days, when she'd often get bullied for being a “nerd.”

Now playing a hot woman who refuses to grow up past high school (and who is also a bit of a bully) in “Young Adult,” Charlize says comparisons between the film and her real life are impossible.

If anything, for a very long time, she was on the other side of the barricade, she reveals for People magazine.

“I wore really nerdy glasses because I was blind as could be and the boys didn’t like [me]. I didn’t have any boyfriends, but lots of crushes,” says the star.

One of these crushes, her biggest presumably, ignored her completely, which drove her mad. At the same time, she was always doing “crazy things” in her desperate attempt to fit in, to be one of the gang.

“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. I was in tears one day because I couldn’t sit next to her,” Charlize says, recalling her mini-stalker days.

Then, there was the bullying. Because she wore glasses, didn't have perfect teeth and didn't know how to dress, she was always picked on by kids at school.

“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. 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,” the star says.

Luckily, she got to prove haters wrong – big time. By the time she was 16, Charlize was a model and had traveled to Milan on work.