BANG SHOWBIZ (TNS)—SZA was bullied for being “awkward” in high school.
The 33-year-old singer – whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe – explained that she was “attacked” as an adolescent for being “awkward” and worried that she would never have the “approval” of her peers.
She said: “I was bullied because I wasn’t quiet–and I was awkward at the same time. I wasn’t this tiny sad victim, but I was more so–attacked just because it was giving ‘What is wrong with you?’ energy. I always thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I’ll never have the approval of anyone in life; this must be my defining factor–this must be the bottom line.”
The ‘Kiss Me More’ hitmaker went on to add that she didn’t attend her prom because she had no friends but now finds it “weird” that she has to walk round with a bodyguard because of her fame and insisted that her high school days have “made her who she is” today.
She told this week’s edition of PEOPLE: “I realized that all the things that made me feel so lame were actually what made me into who I am. It’s like, I didn’t go to prom because I didn’t have any friends, and I had no one to go to prom with … and now] it’s so weird that my life turned into [having] a bodyguard while traveling to parties.
All these things, if I had such a fulfilling existence and experience in high school, I would’ve felt validated to the point where I didn’t need to do anymore. [So] I just had to do more, I had to be more because I was like, ‘This s***** experience can’t be the end of it because if it is, I am cooked.”
BANG International; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
