Kid Featured In 'Bully' Film Finds New Home In Edmond

The movie "Bully" that documents the struggles of five children who were bullied premiers in Oklahoma tonight and one of the kids featured in the film now lives in Edmond.

The film chronicle's Alex Libby's life as he was bullied at an Iowa middle school. Alex had just started a new school: Jr. High in Sioux City, when the bullying started.

"I wanted to make my parents feel like they had made the right decision, so I didn't tell them," Alex explained to News 9 on Thursday.

"He had completely disconnected from life and at that point we felt there was only one other way he could disconnect," said Alex's mother Jackie.

For a year filmmakers followed Alex, documenting his and his family's struggle. But not even Alex's parents understood the extent of the problem until they saw the movie for the first time.

"The first bus scene where somebody bashes Alex's head into a bus seat, I gasped in horror and then sobbed the entire time," said Jackie.

It was after that Alex's family decided to move. They enrolled him in November at Edmond Memorial.

"I met some of these wonderful people and I became friends with them," said Alex.

Now, his part in the movie has raised not only Alex's celebrity, but awareness for the issue.     

"It's definitely opened my eyes for the need for change, for the seriousness of the situation.  It is a national problem," said Carrie Higdon, the freshman principal at Edmond Memorial.

A problem, that doesn't always have a happy ending.

"We've watched him over the course of the year, change back into who he used to be," said Jackie.  "That is the gift that we got, we got our son back."

Alex's family chose Oklahoma because of the other two families featured in the movie are from Oklahoma.