For about four years at primary school, he had been bullied. He was called names, picked on and left out. He did not tell many people how bad it was.
Instead, he wrote it down. He wrote rap lyrics about how it felt.
Online, he met another boy who loved music, Charlie Lenehan, 15, from Gloucestershire in England. They started making music together over the internet, and met in person for the first time in January 2014.
A month later, they stood on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent in Manchester and called themselves Bars and Melody. “Bars” for Leondre’s rap, “Melody” for Charlie’s singing.
They had picked the song “Hope” by Twista and Faith Evans. But they had changed the words. The verses were Leondre’s own, about the bullying he went through.
Charlie sang the chorus softly. Then Leondre started to rap.
He looked straight out at the audience and told them about the boys who made his life miserable, and how he wanted every bullied kid out there to know they were not alone.
The theatre went completely silent.
Amanda Holden had tears running down her face. When the boys finished, the crowd leapt to its feet.
Simon Cowell had heard enough. He reached over and pressed the golden buzzer, sending them straight to the live shows.
Leondre stood there with his hands over his face, shaking.
Bars and Melody finished third in the final. But that did not matter. Simon Cowell signed them anyway. Their first single went to number 5 in the UK charts, and the audition video became one of the most watched in the world that year.
The boys went on to make albums and tour the world for more than ten years, and they became ambassadors against bullying, visiting schools and talking to children who felt the way Leondre once did.
They played their final concert together in March 2025, in Warsaw.
It all started with a bullied boy who decided to write down how he felt.
Has anyone you love ever been bullied? Tell us in the comments.
