Bullied Quaden Bayles is still afraid to return to school despite having Hugh Jackman as a good friend
Bullied nine-year-old Australian boy Quaden Bayles has talked about the public outpour of support he's received since his heartbreaking video went viral but admitted he is still not ready to go back to school.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported how Quaden, who suffers from achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism, had hit headlines across the world after his mother Yarraka uploaded a video where he was begging for a rope to kill himself because of the relentless bullying at school.
"Give me a rope, I want to kill myself," he says in the video. "I just want to stab myself in the heart... I want someone to kill me. I want to die... I want to scratch myself."
The video was viewed over 20 million times and catapulted Quaden to almost a household name, and this past week, he and his mom appeared on 'Good Morning Britain' to talk about helping others like him who are being abused in schools.
"[The video] was a plea for help," Yarraka told hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid. "We are losing way too many children to suicide so something needs to be done. That plea was answered with a lot of love and support."
"There’s been a lot of positive and negatives — 99% love and support. People reached out and told us their stories," she continued. "This is not an isolated case. It’s being able to speak up and ask for help and support so we don’t become another statistic."
Quaden also thanked everyone for their "love and support," before adding, "It’s nice when people say nice comments about me and support me."
Hugh Jackman had reached out to throw his weight behind the young boy over the bullying, and Quaden admitted it was "very good having Hugh Jackman as a friend". However, he said he had still not worked up the courage to go back to school.
"When there are new kids [at school] they don’t really understand [my condition]," he said.
Yarraka had previously revealed that her son had contemplated suicide after he was harassed by a group of girls who surrounded him in school and antagonized him by patting him on the head and laughing while referencing his height.
"I noticed Quaden in the middle of the line and a group of girls around him," she had said. "Apparently there was a new student who wasn’t aware of Quaden’s condition and she’d been making remarks ongoing and Quaden just had had enough at that time."
Quaden's plight had caught the attention of American comedian Brad Williams, who also suffers from dwarfism and set up a GoFundMe page called 'Let's send a wonderful kid to Disneyland!' to show the nine-year-old "there is good in the world."
While the page raised over $460,000, the money was ultimately rejected by his family.
Explaining her reasoning to Piers and Susanna, Yarraka said they "couldn't enjoy a holiday" while they continued to raise awareness about bullying.