Admitting he was bullied as a kid, the actor playing Jay Pritchett on the ABC sitcom reveals he kept the situation a secret because of 'a certain code of honor when you were a boy at school'.
- Jun 24, 2011
AceShowbiz - Not even Ed O'Neill can escape bullying. When discussing about the fight against bullying in an interview on HDNet's show "Inside MMA", the actor portraying Jay Pritchett on "Modern Family" admitted that he, too, was bullied when he was a kid. He continued to point out what made him feel like he had no one to turn to at the time.
"When I was bullied, there was a certain code of honor when you were a boy at school. You didn't go get a teacher and complain about a guy that's bullying you because that was worse," the 65-year-old said. "And I didn't tell me parents at home because I feel like my father would just say, 'Well go fight the guy. I don't care how big he is.' So that was a problem. I didn't really know how to handle it myself."
Ed isn't the only "Modern Family" cast member who used to struggle with bullying. Back in October 2010, his co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson described his experience as hard and horrible. The openly gay actor told E! News he "lived every day in fear" and even "left school in the eighth grade" to go to a different school because of it.
