MAFS' Ella Ding opens up about troubled past: 'Very rebellious'

Married At First Sight star Ella Ding has opened up about her childhood and the bullying she copped at school that led to her rebellious stage.

Speaking on the latest episode of her Sit With Us podcast, which she hosts with MAFS co-star Domenica Calarco, Ella opened up about her earlier years when she attended a private school in Melbourne.

"I was very rebellious, you know, I'd sneak out of the house at midnight and meet up with people at the train station and yeah, like I saw a lot as a young girl," she said.

"[I was] hanging out with bad people, like, people from the wrong side of the tracks. You know I'd hang out at commission flats and skate parks ... I love that I did that from such a young age because it made me so much more street smart and street aware."

She then revealed the bullying she suffered when she was 14 after she kissed her high school crush who turned out to have a girlfriend.

She added the girlfriend attended her school and her "intimidating" friends began to target Ella.

"We were hanging at the train station and back then, you know, smoking cigarettes, not doing all the great things," she said.

"When it came out I kissed him, I was like, I didn't want to go to school, you know, threats on MySpace. They would wait at my locker after lunch and scream at me, they would write on my locker, 'Sl*t', I would be like walking from class to class and I would dread walking across the huge oval in the middle of the school because you had to pass other students.

"Sometimes I'd see this one particular girl and I'd be like, 'Oh my gosh, just look down, don't look at her'. As soon as she saw me she'll go out of her way to cross my path, she would intentionally get in my view and just yell, 'Sl*t', or, 'F**k off'. I hated going to school. I never felt so uncomfortable."

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Ella said she then began to spiral and started "dressing like an emo" and went through a "weird stage".

"Like you didn't want to tell anyone either and everybody knew ... and I couldn't tell my parents," she said.

Ella said her parents were strict and she had a curfew, but that ended when she started leaving her mum notes.

"I used to leave letters on her bed and tell her, 'You're the reason I don't have friends'. We couldn't communicate very well," she said.

"I was just so mean to her and I didn't really know how else to be. After the letters, the curfew went away, and I just sort of became the boss of my mum.

"I'd be like, 'I'm not coming home', and I wouldn't come home, I wouldn't tell her.

"Things just changed. I started smoking cigarettes, started breaking the rules, I got suspended in high school."

Ella said she was trying to escape the confines of private school and express her personality and later moved to a public school.

"As soon as I moved, I had a shaved head, tatts, started experimenting with a bunch of different things," she said.

"That's when I got my boyfriend as well ... and he exposed me to a lot of things from a young age. He did have substance abuse and you know, I was helping him and wanted him to get better."

Elsewhere in the podcast, Ella also admitted she hadn't been in love since high school.

"I haven't said I love you to a man in 11 years and meant it, which is so sad, like that makes me sad because I love love so much," she said.

"And it's all I've been chasing since before the show of MAFS."

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