Amy Roloff is opening up about the traumatic effects bullying as a child has had on her life.
In a preview of Tuesday’s all-new Little People, Big World, the Roloff matriarch brings boyfriend Chris Marek and son Zach Roloff up to visit her family in Michigan, but fond memories of childhood quickly turn emotional when the topic of the harassment Amy faced for being a little person comes up.
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Her brother even reveals he had to get into a “whole WWE wrestling match” with a kid four years older than him after he “kept following [Amy] home and just saying nasty stuff,” and often got called out of class to walk her home early because adults were “afraid [Amy] would not get home safely.”
“I cried,” Amy recalls. “It was scary.”
Hearing what his mom had to go through had son Zach reflecting on his experiences as a little person growing up on Roloff Farms, going to private school and dealing with “teasing, not bullying.”
“I never dealt with anything like that — teasing, I dealt with teasing,” he tells the camera after pressing his mom for more details. “It wasn’t like I showed up to school every day and the same kid was there ready to go.”
Being able to get away from everything at home was also invaluable. “I also had the farm,” he adds. “You’re getting away from the town; you’re getting away from the city. You have space to breathe.”
These experiences stayed with the TLC personality far longer than just her school days, she admits to the camera.
“Things from your childhood can affect you for the rest of your life,” she says. “I know it’s affected me for a long, long time, allowing other people’s opinions and thoughts matter more than what I truly thought about myself.”
Sitting next to Marek, who wraps an arm around her for support, Amy begins to tear up, explaining, “I internalized a lot. I’ve gotten less hard on myself, but I know growing up it was not good.”
Little People, Big World airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.
Photo credit: TLC
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