Christina Hendricks Reveals She Was Bullied and Spit On in High School

Man Men actress opens up in new interview

By Brett Malec Aug 04, 2014 6:32 PMTags
Christina HendricksDimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Christina Hendricks is opening up about her experiences with high school bullying.

In the new interview with The Guardian, the 39-year-old Mad Men actress reveals she was bullied as a teen after her family moved from a small town of Twin Falls, Idaho, to Fairfax, Va.

"We had a locker bay, and every time I went down there to get books out of my locker people would sit on top and spit at me," Hendricks says. "So I had to have my locker moved because I couldn't go in there...I felt scared in high school. It was like Lord of the Flies. There was always some kid getting pummeled and people cheering."

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Hendricks says she found comfort in acting and even became goth as a way to express her emotions. "My parents would say, 'You're just alienating everyone. You'll never make any friends looking like that.' And I would say, 'I don't want those people to be my friends," she said. "I'm never going to be friends with the people who beat up a kid while everyone is cheering them on. I hate them.'"

Fast-forward a few decades: Hendricks is on a hit TV show and happily married to Geoffrey Arend. Hendricks says she and Arend have had a "million conversations" about not wanting to have kids.

"I mean, they are a lot of work," she dished. "I think in my mid-20s I [wanted kids] because I was moving around a lot and didn't have that sense of community, of being rooted."

"I know plenty of people who don't have children," Hendricks added. "And I also get a lot of people who say, 'Thank you for speaking out, my family don't understand why I don't want kids.'"