Tulisa Contostavlos’ dad reveals how childhood bullying made her tough

London: Tulisa Contostavlos’ father Plato has revealed that she was bullied mercilessly as a schoolgirl after cruel classmates found out her mother suffered from schizophrenia. According to a leading daily, ‘The X Factor’ judge would sob for days over taunts about her mum Ann, who was in and out of hospital due to the illness. In a fascinating insight into her early life, the tough-talking TV star’s dad revealed how after two years of vicious bullying she came home from school one day and told him she had finally learnt how to stand up to her tormentors. “My daughter was horribly bullied. It was awful. Children would scream, ‘Your mum’s a loony’,” a daily has quoted him as saying. “Tulisa was about five years old when it first started. She would come home crying all the time. “In the end I had to tell her, ‘I can’t go and sort this problem out for you. This is the kind of thing you are going to face in life and you have to stand up for yourself’. “Then one day when she was about seven, after I had trained her for about six months, she came back from school and said, ‘Dad I knocked one of them out. You were right Dad, I did it’. “It had to be done, the misery that child went through at school was unbelievable. Every time she went in she was terrified,” he said. Plato believes that was the day Tulisa learnt how to stick up for herself and developed her tough exterior. However, it didn’t completely stop the bullying so Plato decided to move her to a new school. “She went through a lot, that’s why she has become who she is, it made her the success she is. It’s incredible that she has achieved what she has considering everything. Her childhood was unbelievably tough,” he added. ANI