Rivkah Reyes Recalled Her Experience With “Raging” Addiction

After two decades of the release, School of Rock star Rivkah Reyes recalled her personal experience regarding bullying, addiction, and more “demons”. She also has to experience an eating disorder after filming the Jack Black movie.

Fans may recall Rivkah Reyes as Katie in the film School of Rock. The character of a 10-year-old bass player in the Dewey Finn band was very popular at that time. Reyes admits that is grateful for the experience and appearance of this film released in 2003. She also revealed how the role of this film ultimately led to a 10-year battle with bullying and addiction.

Recently Reyes talked in an interview. In that interview, she mentioned that she was bullied by classmates after the film was released. She said, “Especially after production wrapped, when I first came back to school, people were really nice or really mean. There was no middle ground,” they said. “I was literally followed around the school with people chanting School of Rock.”

Reyes also stated, “they’ll stop calling you Katie”. Harassment from kids and strangers contributed to Reyes becoming “a raging addict”.

The former child star previously shared some insight into his difficult past in an article. At that time Reyes wrote, “From the age of 14, I used drugs, alcohol, sex, food, and self-harm to numb all of this pain. I’ve survived dozens of toxic relationships and three suicide attempts. I’m not saying all of this is because I played bass in a movie when I was a kid but because I spent over a decade terrified that I’d peaked at 10 years old.”

Reyes is working on the upcoming podcast Where Are We Now. Recently she was identified as a “self-acceptance warrior, queer filipina jewitch” on Instagram.