Garth Brooks helps bullied 11-year-old girl during Regina show

Plenty of country music fans saw Garth Brooks play last weekend at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium, but it was 11-year-old Camille Baragar who got a front-row seat to the music star’s show on Saturday.

The girl from Southey was on stage with the country music star after he played “Standing Outside the Fire” for her before thousands of cheering fans.

Camille got there because of a yellow, hand-made sign she was holding that read, “Bullied but not broken.”

She and her mom, Connie, made their way to the front of Brooks’ stage, after security guards read the girl’s sign and urged her to the front.

After Books saw the sign, he took some time to give Camille advice about bullies.

“They’re people that are hurting. Show them empathy and show them kindness and forgiveness. The hardest thing to do is to love them,” Connie recalled of his advice.

Garth Brooks hugs 11-year-old Camille Baragar on stage during his show at Mosaic Stadium on Aug. 10, 2019. (Connie Baragar Facebook page)

Bullies had picked on Camille about her weight and her height all through Grade 6 at Robert Southey School, Connie said. It got to the point where her daughter didn’t want to go to school some days, because she feared further harassment.

Hearing Brooks’ advice was the help she needed, Camille said.

“I loved it. It was very inspirational. I take that everywhere I go,” she said. “(It was) the fact that I heard that message from someone as famous as Garth Brooks. When your parents say it, it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK.’ But when someone famous says it, it’s like it actually matters.”

Now, Camille said she’s ready and excited to return to school in September, to start Grade 7 and to see all of her friends.

She pondered the prospect of what she might say if a student approaches her for advice about handling a bully.

“Don’t listen to them,” she said her advice would be. “They will try to bring you down to bring them up, and they’ve definitely done that to me.

“I’ve wasted a lot of tears about things that don’t matter.”

Her mom said she was grateful for the experience, for Brooks’ advice to her daughter and for the support they’ve received after the fact.

Connie also said she hopes the media coverage of her daughter’s experience serves as an inspiration to others, whether they’ve been bullied or not.

Maybe it can “make a kid that’s maybe being the bully figure something out to choose a better path; then that has made all the difference in the world,” she said.