Queen’s Gambit star Anya: I was bullied because of how I look | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

Anya was born in Miami, Florida, when her parents were on holiday. Her father is Argentine-British and her mother Zambian-British mother and Anya spent her first six years in Buenos Aires, before moving to London, where she was bullied “for being different”.

Speaking on the latest episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, she said: “Argentina is all green and I had horses and animals everywhere – all of a sudden I was in a big city and I didn’t speak the language.

“I didn’t really feel like I fitted in anywhere. I was too English to be Argentine, too Argentine to be English, too American to be anything. The kids just didn’t understand me in any shape or form. I used to get locked in lockers.”

The effect, she said, was that she spent a lot of time in school, “crying in bathrooms”.

The star, who wore a skin-tight short pink dress with a low-cut neckline, told the US chat show: “I was very, very lucky with my parents because when I was bullied for my looks my mom always said you look at the inside of somebody…you don’t look at class, you don’t look at anything like that.

“You don’t look at what they do for a job, it’s just ‘do you like that person’s heart’? And I really have to give a big shout out to my mom for that because it was really helpful.”

For the first six years of her life, Anya was raised in Argentina until her family – whom she once called ‘nomadic, travelling gypsies really’ – moved to the Victoria area of London.

At the time she did not speak a word of English, and in a previous interview she revealed her struggle to adapt to her new home country.

She decided to move to New York at the age of 14, then gave up school two years later to pursue acting – a decision that “terrified” her family.

But she finally got her lucky break back in London, when she was spotted by Sarah Doukas, founder of the prestigious Storm model agency who is also credited with discovering Kate Moss.

But she found worldwide fame starring in 2020 as fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon in Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit.