'School of Rock' child star says their role led to bullying and becoming 'a raging addict'

• The "School of Rock" star Rivkah Reyes said their role in the movie led to bullying and addiction.
• In a New York Post interview, Reyes described endless teasing and bullying from classmates.
• Reyes previously wrote about addiction and self-harm in a 2017 Medium essay.

The former child star Rivkah Reyes said that their role in "School of Rock" led to bullying and addiction and that they believe their experience paralleled that of Britney Spears.

Reyes, who goes by the gender-neutral pronouns they/them, played Katie in Jack Black's 2003 movie "School of Rock" while just 10 years old. The success of this movie brought Reyes a lot of attention, which wasn't always a good thing.

Reyes told the New York Post in a new interview that classmates made their life painful in the wake of the hit movie.

"Especially after production wrapped, when I first came back to school, people were really nice or really mean," Reyes said. "There was no middle ground. I was literally followed around the school with people chanting 'School of Rock.'"

Reyes has discussed similar experiences before. In an essay for Medium in 2017, they wrote: "I'll never forget one girl who came up to me and asked me to sign her lunch card, then tore it up and threw it in the trash in front of me."

Reyes said they "felt unsafe existing" because of obsessive fans and feeling sexualized while barely a teen, including by one man who attempted to photograph them while they were in sixth grade and by online message boards in which adult men would write things like how they couldn't "wait 'til she's 18" or "the bassist is going to grow up to be hot."

Reyes described themself to the Post as a "raging addict" from the age of 14 to 24 as they put pressure on themself to land a bigger part so people would stop calling them Katie and the bullying would stop.

In their Medium essay, Reyes wrote that they used self-harm, sex, drugs, and alcohol as coping mechanisms to get through this time.

"I spent over a decade terrified that I'd peaked at 10 years old," Reyes said in their essay.

Reyes told the Post, however, that they did not regret doing "School of Rock."

"I have never lost gratitude for that, or wish that I wasn't part of it," they said.

Reyes said the other child actors in the movie quickly became close friends and stayed in touch via group chats and multiple reunions over the years. Reyes said Black had also stayed in touch with the cast as well, calling the actor a "great guy."

Reyes described overcoming "a lot of demons," though, including alcoholism and addiction.

"To quote Britney, I'm stronger than yesterday," they said.

The actor has been getting back into acting since 2017 and plans to release a podcast called "Where Are We Now" later this year that will give other child stars a platform to speak about their experiences.

More and more child stars have recently been coming forward detailing their traumatic experiences. The "Matilda" star Mara Wilson wrote an essay for The New York Times slamming the treatment of child stars and Britney Spears, drawing comparisons between her early career and that of Spears'.

Spears has been at the center of a #FreeBritney movement that has seen many fans support the singer, who has been stuck in conservatorship for 13 years. The recent New York Times documentary "Framing Britney Spears" examined the conservatorship and the many legal battles over it.