How Gemma Collins was beaten and intimidated before going to the diva

Gemma Collins has made headlines in recent weeks for her alleged diva behavior on the set of Dancing On Ice.

However, long before it became "The GC". the star of TOWIE was a shy young schoolgirl targeted by bullies.

The Romford native even ended up being viciously beaten and robbed during an attack at a disco by a clbadmate.

After struggling while she was a student at the Frances Bardsley For Girls Academy, her parents later transferred her to the Raphael Independent School, with £ 7,800 a year.

Gemma revealed her teenage emotions in her 2013 autobiography Basically … My life as a real Esbad girl.

The bubbly blonde confessed that she was regularly harbaded by bands of school girls and was trying to remain discreet.

She wrote, "Outside of school, I pbaded some girls' bands and I could feel them looking at me, I could feel their hostility and hear them whisper things in their breath.

"A few months later, I started to feel bad about going to school."

Things went awry when an evening in a Ritzy nightclub with a boyfriend ended in violence.

Recalling the attack, Gemma said: "I did not see the girl approaching, I just felt it, she approached me and landed a stinging punch on the bridge of the nose …

"I saw the girl bend down and pick up my bag in which I was dancing and that contained my money and my door keys.

"Dad had given me £ 30 for the night and in addition, the bag contained a new handbag from Next that I'd care for myself."

The day after the attack, Gemma's mother, Joan, was furious and said that she wanted to remove her daughter from school.

Remembering the pain, she said, "My eye was closed and the bruises were coming out, it was blue, red, and angry.

"It's uncontrollable now, we do not think all girls are going to school, that's fine for you," said Mom. "

Gemma insisted that she did not want to change school, but was starting to suffer from debilitating anxiety and was starting to drop out of school and forge sick notes to her. professor.

His father Alan hired Gemma in self-defense clbades to "make sure that if it happens again, I could take care of myself."

Gemma credited her mother Joan for regaining her self-confidence, which had been hard hit.

She wrote: "" All my life, Mom told me not to be nervous and walk tall. "When you enter a room, enter as if you owned it," she said.

"But deep inside me, under bravado, I was shy, and now the security bubble that I was living had exploded." I was scared …

"I had always been popular – sometimes it was exhausting because I was always invited to parties – but suddenly I realized that my extrovert personality and my taste for life gave reason to people and complained to me about bullying.

"I did not want to go to school anymore."

Her parents then transferred her to a private school, Raphael, where she graduated and met fellow student Amy Childs.

It's the mother of Amy, Julie, who finally suggested Gemma to TOWIE's producers in 2011, who eventually featured her in the second series of the series.