Bullied boy Quaden Bayles wanted to kill himself after girls patted his head and laughed, his mother reveals
The mother of Quaden Bayles, who was bullied for his height, has revealed the sequence of events that led to the now-infamous video where the nine-year-old Australian boy can be seen crying and contemplating suicide.
Quaden became a worldwide sensation and attracted the support of several notable celebrities after Yarraka Bayles uploaded heartwrenching footage on social media where her son, who suffers from achondroplasia, was crying because of the relentless bullying he suffered at school.
"Give me a rope, I want to kill myself," the 9-year-old can be heard telling his mother. "I wish I could stab myself in the heart... I want some-one to kill me."
The virality and impact of the video eventually saw famed talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres invite him to speak on her show, though that offer was ultimately rejected in favor of an interview with Aboriginal broadcaster NITV.
"This was Quaden’s third week back at school," Yarraka said of the incident that prompted him to break down. "He missed the first week due to a family funeral in Sydney. We’d just come back to Brisbane and we’d been working with the hospital and the school to get him back into school."
However, when she went to pick up that evening, she said she saw him surrounded by a group of girls antagonizing him and making him uncomfortable.
"I noticed Quaden in the middle of the line and a group of girls around him," she shared. "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."
"When me and my daughter witnessed that — just the patting on the head and a couple of other little girls making references to his height and laughing about it — he was very uncomfortable," she continued. "I could see the look on his face, and I know that look very well because it’s a regular occurrence for him."
She said the incident made her angry and want to confront the girls, but that Quaden stopped her because he didn't want to make a scene.
"As soon as we got in that car, about 15 minutes after the incident, he just broke down," she revealed. "Patting someone on the head can be quite dehumanizing. It’s almost like you think they’re an animal or a novelty — they’re not quite human."
A GoFundMe page set up for Quaden by comedian Brad Williams, who also suffers from dwarfism, raised $461,000, which the family has pledged to charities to fight bullying and suicide.