Jungle queen Scarlett Moffatt has revealed she was so badly bullied when she was at school that she had to leave 10 minutes early so she was not beaten up.
However, she said she now sees positives in the torment she went through as a young girl.
She told The Sun: “If I hadn’t had those experiences at school, then I probably wouldn’t be here.
“If I had just tried to fit in, I wouldn’t be the weirdo that I am now.”
Scarlett said she would pretend to her parents that she enjoyed being at school so they wouldn’t worry about her.
She said; “The way the school dealt with it was that, 10 minutes before the end of the day, I was allowed to leave early so I didn’t get beat up.
“I would just walk around Asda’s car park until three o’clock or up until the time I was meant to come home.
“I just felt so embarrassed to tell my mum and dad.
“I would pretend to my parents that I loved school.
“Sometimes I would sit in the toilets at breaks just so I didn’t have to wander around the playgrounds on my own.”
The TV star, 26, had to get plastic caps on her teeth after she was hit by a car while riding her bike and the accident also left her with Bell’s palsy, which caused one side of her face to droop.
She told the paper: “I smashed my teeth and had all the nerves taken out, so I had a black tooth as well as a monobrow, and I was a little bit chubby, and then half my face was on the slide.
“There was just loads of things.
“One of the kids also saw me metal detecting with my dad, so you can imagine how that went down.”
Scarlett is set to have the last laugh, though – she has been tipped to land a £1 million windfall from her jungle win.