Now, 58, Wilkinson told fellow host Carrie Bickmore and Project Rockit founder Lucy Thomas, she couldn't confide in her parents when it came to her torturous experience.
“I felt so humiliated and so small as a result of it that I thought if I keep it as much as I can to myself, even though sometimes half the school would be surrounding me because the toughest girl in the school would want to fight me.”
As a result, the TV presenter said she was made to feel that she “didn’t want to excel at anything”.
“If I was doing well at something that meant that I stood out and became a target,” she said.
“It’s the most awful, humiliating moment — moments — I’ve ever experienced in my life and I really feel for kids.”
Wilkinson went on to explain that while she had friends around her, she was worried that they too would be bullied if they had stuck up for her.
“I did have friends around me, Lucy, but it didn’t really help because they got targeted as well. If they were hanging around me, they copped it to,” she said.
Ms Thomas responded: “This is why we need to have really honest, realistic conversations and not treat young people like babies ... The reality is standing up to prejudice is hard. We think it’s worth it, but we need to find safe ways for school students to do it in a way that feels okay and right by them.”
Wilkinson then shared a positive from the whole experience, detailing that she found a way to receive some sort of payback from the whole ordeal by not inviting any bullies to the reunion.
" promised myself on my very last day of school — year 12, last exam — I walked out the gates and I made a promise to myself that I would never again allow somebody to decide on my behalf who I was and what I was capable of,” she said. “And then eventually you get to be the organiser of the school reunion, and let me tell you, that’s been pretty satisfying.”
Watch Wilkinson's full story below!
