Former Boyzone singer Keith Duffy has opened up about bullying and “mental torture” in high school.
The 47-year-old remembers spending three difficult years at a Christian Brothers school in Dublin where he was so bullied for coming from a ‘poorer’ area that he eventually had to leave the university.
“It would be fair to say that I was bullied at school between the ages of 13, 15 and 16,” he told The Irish Sun.
“I don’t mean physically, because I was involved in contact sports and that suited me.
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Boyzlife’s Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden
“But it was mental torture, it was mental intimidation, it was always thrown off the main group of people.”
Continuing, Keith said the experience had a lasting impact on him: “It’s kind of a mental torture, a mental bullying that stayed with me for years, it made me doubt myself for very, very long time.”
“For years and years after it had a negative effect on me, it made me uncertain.”
The father-of-two said he confided in his late father Sean at the time: “I said to my dad, ‘I’m not liked there, I’m being bullied.
“There were lies spread against me in this school which upset me.
“Just childish stuff to be honest, but it does have an effect on you when you’re a kid and trying to figure out who you are as you go through your teens and grow up.”
After three long years, the musician was transferred to another school, where he had the best time of his life.
“I met a whole new group of guys and they were all from different backgrounds and I had the best two years of my life at this school.
“But those three years at a Christian Brothers school in Dublin were probably the worst three years of my school life,” he added.
