"Friday" Singer Rebecca Black Left School Because of Taunting

What a strange and interesting year it's been for 14-year-old singer Rebecca Black. She became a household name back in March when the vanity video for her pop single "Friday" became an overnight viral sensation, scoring a whopping 167 million views before being pulled from YouTube. But while some defended the song's cheesy lyrics and annoyingly infectious chorus, others hated it. And now, Black reveals that she has withdrawn from her Anaheim Hills, Calif., school to be home-schooled by her mother because taunting from classmates was too relentless.

"When I walk by they'll start singing 'Friday' in a really nasally voice," Black tells ABC News. "Or, you know, they'll be like, 'Oh hey, Rebecca, guess what day it is?'"

It doesn't sound extreme enough to have to withdraw from school, but Black's mother, Georgina Marquez insists that it was the right move. "She certainly did not need that kind of pressure," Marquez says, adding that home-schooling will also permit Black to focus on her music career.

Indeed, "Friday" has put Black on the map and given her a shot at a real music career -- at the same time that it's made Rebecca a target for harassment, cyberbullying (critcs said argued she'd made the worst song in history) and even death threats -- which seems like a fairly giant overreaction to a music single. "Friday" is not a classic, obviously, and does not announce Black as the next Miley Cyrus, but certainly nobody deserves to die as a result of the innocuous song!

Still, there have been obvious upsides to the "Friday" hoopla: Stephen Colbert performed the song on Jimmy Fallon's show with a cast of what looked like hundreds, Glee featured it in an episode last season, and Black herself landed a spot in Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (TGIF)" video.

Black has also just released her second single, called "My Moment," which opens with the lyrics: "Weren't you the one who said that I would be nothing? Well, I'm about to prove you wrong."

Rebecca could be talking to everyone who has spent the last couple of months mocking her, or she could be talking to her former bullying classmates. So far, the video has received nearly 22.5 million views.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/friday-rebecca-black-leaves-school-taunting/1-a-372174

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