His sister Carole, 59 has made the revelation as the popular star continues to do well in the jungle.
John's big sis said that he suffered horrendous bullying as a child
But she added that it turned him into the "amazing" man he is today.
Carole is now hoping that John will be crowned King of the Jungle, to prove all his bullies wrong.
She told The Mirror: “Bullying left a scar on John. He saw the nasty side of life when he was bullied.
“It was a very horrible experience for him. But he came through it all to become an entertainer and likeable personality.
“Now I know that if anyone was being bullied, John wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for them.”
Carole, who co-authors novels with her brother, says he has always managed to turn a negative situation into something positive.
She explained: “He’s very conscious that you want to get rid of the people that are toxic and stay with the ones who build you up
“That’s definitely one of the lessons he learned from bullying.”
John was first tormented after his family moved from Glasgow to Aurora, Illinois, when he was eight, when his dad, John Snr, got a job at the Caterpillar tractor plant.
He was initially picked on because of his Scottish accent.
Carole recalled: “A lot of the kids couldn’t understand what he was saying. They would harass him a lot.
"At high school John was even bullied by those in his drama class, where he had hoped to fit in.
“The older kids were really very unkind.They were mean to him because they could tell that he was talented. They had been very aggressive.”
This new revelation comes as John talked about how he was sacked from a television show for refusing to hide his sexuality.
The actor was due to appear on American soap Central Park West, which was on screens from 1995 to 1996 but he was ditched when he told producers he was not comfortable hiding the fact he is gay.
John spoke about the situation during a previous appearance on Loose Women.
He said: “The producers pulled me into the office and sat me down – one was gay – and said they didn’t want me to talk about my boyfriend at the time, Scott, who I eventually married.
“In a nutshell, they asked me to go back into the closet, and I went back to Scott and said, ‘I can’t do that’.
“For years I’d wanted to be myself and hid being gay for a period of time, and been bullied for certain things, so I said no and I just lived my life.
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“My character was written out of the TV show, and sent off to South America to get a facelift and came back as somebody else but the show was cancelled, so…”
Occasional television presenter John was cast as the character of Peter Fairchild, a high-powered attorney and stepson of a rich editor of a highly regarded fashion magazine based in New York.
John started dating partner Scott Gill in 1993, three years before he scored his Central Park West role, and he has been out with regards to his sexuality for most of his career.
The pair met during a production at the Chichester Film Festival where Scott was in the audience.
The couple entered a civil partnership in 2006 and legally married in California in 2013.
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