Charlie Puth: 'Bullying made me ill'

Singer Charlie Puth was tormented by bullies as a child.

The 24 year old pop star has revealed his life was made a misery by a group of nasty kids, and he is convinced the trauma made him sick.

"It was mostly verbal, like name-calling and such, the verbal stuff was massive amounts of discouragement like, 'How could you remotely think you could make it in (the music) industry?' but I didn't listen, because I knew I was pretty dope," he tells Britain's The Independent. "But they would team up against me so bad and they would kick me in a place that wouldn't feel fantastic and I would need to throw up and they would then say I was pretending to throw up."

After leaving school, Charlie went on to launch a successful music career, scoring huge hits with songs such as See You Again and Marvin Gaye, and he reveals the bullies are now fans.

"It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when they are nice to me now and they show all these fake cards all at once," he adds. "I am pretty civil with everybody because I hate bad energy but it makes me so uncomfortable. So I just say, 'It's nice to see you, OK I'm going to leave now'. But I mostly stay in the house."

Charlie recently teamed up with the former Disney star Selena Gomez on his track We Don't Talk Any More and her kindness is something he really admires.

"The best thing about Selena is that, when she's being nice, it's not an act at all," he told Britain's Heat magazine. "She's really being genuine, that's why I like her so much. It's just that she's a really good friend to me. I care a lot about that girl. She was really mistreated in the past and now I'm out spreading the good word."