Bella Thorne is getting extremely candid.
The 28-year-old Disney alum made an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which premiered on Wednesday (August 5).
During the conversation, Bella addressed comparisons to Lindsay Lohan as a young star, being pitted against Zendaya during her Disney years, difficult family dynamics and facing financial pressures, taking ownership of her sexuality and leaking her own photos, and an update on Spring Breakers 2.
See highlights from the conversation inside…
On her Disney experience & Lindsay Lohan comparisons:
Bella: “I didn’t so much hang out with people from the network. I hung out with Zendaya. We hung out. ‘Shake It Up’ was in a different time when Miley and Selena and Demi and those shows, they were all, I think, 16, 17 when we were starting, so the eras are so different, and yet they intersect and I remember when I was 12, people asking me if I was gonna be, you know, comparing us, all the Disney girls, with Miley and Selena in this new era, and asking which was gonna be the next bad girl, and, ‘Are you gonna be like Lindsay Lohan?’ All these things at 12, 13. You’re just, your brain is trying so hard. Like, ‘Am I gonna be like, what? What is the question?’ It’s such a weird…”
On meeting Zendaya & being pitted against each other:
Bella: “Meeting at the screen test, like the mix and matches, and then the screen tests, and I remember at the mix and matches, I think I liked her immediately. I think that our chemistry was the best and I remember thinking, ‘She’s so tall and I’m so short,’ and then when they put us together for the screen test, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, they like it,’ and I remember us having to do the dancing and the freestyle and I was like, ‘Okay, she can dance and I’m not a dancer.’ As a child, my mom was like, ‘You’re gonna work on it.’ Yeah, I did end up taking, between the pilot and the series of it being picked up, I did for that seven months take three dance classes a day and would do the auditions during the day, and then, yeah, during the night and I was like, ‘I’m gonna, I’m gonna be able to do this.’”
Alex: “And I think something that was interesting from that era that is so prevalent even still today in media is, like, and I know you’ve talked about it a little bit before of how you and Zendaya were pitted against each other at that age on the show, even though it’s like, you’re supposed to just be a duo, and, like, why can’t we accept both of us?”
Bella: “People can’t, they don’t, women with women. It’s just, ‘Nope, we have to make you guys all big for one spot so that we can have the 80 other million ones, but if you guys can beat each other down and scrape till whatever extent we’re asking you to, like eat yourselves alive while we have all these spots, but for women, just one of you.’ I mean, man. The patriarchy’s been doing it for, obviously, since the beginning of time, but it really, like yeah. You just go back and you’re like, ‘God damn, they were 12. What’s wrong with you? You’re an adult.’”
Alex: “And also, it’s a duo. We’re not beating each other.”
Bella: “We’re supposed to be best friends. They play best friends. Yeah. It got pretty bad, and then, and then you have your families, and you have the rest of the set and everything and I think it got to a point where when we were on our ‘Good Luck Charlie’ crossover, we escaped to another set in the middle of live taping, which is really ballsy, bada–, and rebellious. Very rebellious.”
Alex: “What do you mean? You escaped?”
Bella: “Escaped is a funny word. We didn’t escape, but we snuck out. We knew that we had three scenes until we were up again and we were just like, ‘Let’s just go talk.’ And we did. And we escaped to another set that wasn’t being used on, you know, on another soundstage, and we’re hiding up there, and then they were looking for us. We stayed a little too long. They were looking for us for that next scene and we got into it, hashed it out, and it was so beautiful. It was my first experience, woman to woman, girl to girl, where you actually can speak, and you can both be heard about the different things you’ve been experiencing and what people are saying and how they’re trying to do this to you, and you can walk out of there seeing each other. I think it’s definitely in there in the book still as one of the most genuine, girl-on-girl talks.”
On discussing childhood family dynamics & financial pressures:
Bella: “When we moved to LA, um, my father died shortly after when I was nine and he did not leave us with anything or life insurance or anything like that, so my mom was in, I don’t even know how she did it. Four kids and nothing, and a house in her name that she didn’t sign for and foreclosure and he died in a motorcycle accident, so it was quite sudden, and it was just really bad for a long time. My mom was working. She was also trying to take us to every audition that she could and you’ve got four kids all with auditions, all on opposite sides of the town and just kind of running herself ragged as well as us just knowing all the time what was gonna happen if we didn’t get that job. It was a way to, I think, learn how to work and yet it’s one of the things I’m most thankful for at the same time. That’s something I know I can always do is work.”
On momager dynamics & pressure to be good:
Bella: “The feeling of going home was literally just wanting to be good at something. Felt like I tried so hard to be good at all the things in my life and it was just never enough. I try and take some of that pressure off myself now, but it’s kind of like, you know, beaten into me in that way, hard to just get away from it, to retrain the brain in new thoughts. I just wanted to be good and I just never was actually good. There was always more, and then with the comparing and always never enough, and then I got really close to my teacher on ‘Shake It Up,’ and I loved to learn and I would go home and she would give me a lot of homework and that’s what I would stay up all night doing, and my mom would get so mad. So mad and she put a complainant in. Love you, mommy. I’m sorry, but she put a complaint into Disney of, like, ‘She doesn’t have time to study her lines at night because she’s doing so much schoolwork,’ and my teacher never backed down. She still gave me just, just as much. My teacher, Monique, on ‘Shake It Up,’ she brought me from, like I don’t know. Three levels in two years. I went from not being able to add and subtract double-digit numbers at 12, which is not good, to three grades above and being able to read in front of people and being so good at math, and yeah, which I’ve mostly forgotten now, which is just such a d–k. Such a d–k, man, but yeah, that was definitely a time where I was like, ‘You could be more mommy than manager.’ I definitely needed to know my lines, but school is also something I was so made fun of and so bad at to then be actually good at something and I just wanted to keep being good at something.”
On her breaking point with her mom & thoughts of self-harm:
Bella: “I was turning 18 soon, and I could feel the erraticness coming there. Again, not having the space to be like, ‘Let’s actually talk about what happens when you turn 18.’ I think I was so scared, and my mom was so scared. We were both so scared and when I was shooting ‘Midnight Sun,’ I turned 18 on that movie right before we started shooting, and yeah. That ended quite fractured and I moved out that night with my boyfriend at the time, Greg, and yeah, in a blink of an eye, I’m this one person and moments later, I’m a completely other person, and I have no idea where to go or what to do, or I don’t have an ID, I don’t have anything. I literally don’t have anything, but I’m just gonna go, because I just can’t do this anymore and I think between everything with a lot of the, the work and growing up and the way that I did, I struggled very badly with suicidal thoughts and depression and I thought at one point if I hurt myself, that maybe she would see how much pain I was in and I knew when I was there at those thoughts that I had to leave. I was like, ‘I don’t wanna keep thinking about that.’ So that was, to answer your question, long-winded way of answering your question, I guess the crux of leaving.”
On breaking away from her Disney era:
Bella: “I think people can see how I’ve managed it publicly. They can see it. They’ve got photos of it. They got all the photos. Oh, wow. I don’t know that I ever handled it or balanced it out correctly. I don’t think that I ever had that mental clarity. I’ve worked a lot on the more recent side. I got to a point where I just needed to kind of change things in my life and get better at. I was working so much and yet was leaving very little time for the things that I really, really cared about, and so I started to focus on that this year and last year, and then after I made this movie, ‘Color Your Hurt,’ I put all the heart and soul and then didn’t have much left afterwards and had to, you know, really wanted to get into the mental health aspect and the brain aspect and just get better on things and give myself some space to breathe and grace, so I don’t think I ever did that when I was younger. But I do remember when I turned 18, and in that 18 to 19 year, I was like, ‘I’m free. I’m literally free. I’m walking into this house and no one’s asking me when am I gonna be there? When this time or when I’m gonna leave.’ It was such a weird…”
On releasing her own intimate photos after a hacker threatened to leak them:
Alex: “In 2019, you made the decision to leak your own n-des because a hacker was essentially threatening that they were going to do this and can you just tell the story of what the hell happened ‘cause I unfortunately think revenge p–n is such a common experience for a lot of women and I would just love to hear what your personal experience was with it.”
Bella: “It started off with a text like, ‘Oh, hi, kitty.’ Something, something, and I was just like, ‘What is this? Did a fan get my number?’ And then again and again, and then a photo of me that I had never posted and my brain, just like chills, and then he was like, ‘You want more?’ And so he sent more. And then he kept sending them until he got me in a conversation with him, and yeah, he kept going with it. I was doing my book tour at the time for ‘The Life of Wannabe Mogul,’ and I’m like, ‘I wrote this book because I felt like I was so misunderstood, and I was so. I didn’t know how to express myself. Not only misunderstood, but I was not properly expressing myself and I felt that kind of one of my last things that I had to do before kind of just giving up on myself was write this book and then maybe people read it and they understand me a little bit more,’ so I write this book, and while I’m doing this press tour talking about molestation and dark s–t, this man is threatening me and won’t stop threatening me and I had to keep doing these interviews and I’ll never forget, I’m with my manager, Thor, who I’m still with, and at that time, I looked at him. I showed him the messages. He read through all of them and I was just like, ‘I don’t know what to do. It just feels like this is what’s happening again. My power was taken from me then for so many years and now, he has this thing of me and he’s taking it again.’ It felt like being re-raped and also feeling this, like everything will end if he does this. Everything will end for you. All the s–t that you’ve been through, everything you’ve done to get to this point’s all going to be blown up and just, it’s gone if he does this and having someone else have that power and that agency over your own body, ugh, and I love my manager at that time, and I think he saw me as a person and not as a client because I don’t think anyone, any agent or manager would’ve been like, ‘Yeah. All right. You wanna do that because you think it’ll make you feel better? Sure. Release your own n-des.’ And he was like, ‘Honestly, Bella? What he’s writing you is f–ked up with what you’ve been through. This is your only way. I don’t have another way for you. I don’t have another option,’ and I put them out and that was horrible.”
Alex: “How did you come up with that idea to release them yourself?”
Bella: “He’s literally saying he’s gonna do this, and I don’t keep sending him photos and now he wants me to start sending stuff, and then now—”
Alex: “It wasn’t even about money. He wanted more photos.”
Bella: “Also about money and photos and I’m gonna keep sending you these videos, and then he starts sending me other people that I’m friends with, their nudes and he’s like, ‘You see how powerful I am, how many times I can do this to you over and over.’ And I was like, ‘Well, at the end of the day, if I’m gonna lose my whole career and everything I’ve worked for being 20 at that time and working since I was eight, I’m gonna just say f–k it all, and I’m never gonna work again, and my life’s over because this man’s gonna do this, so I’ll just do it.’ Again, it’s kind of. I guess if you think about it, it’s kind of the way I approach life. You wanna say she’s so sexual? Okay, so then I’ll be sexual. You wanna do this to me? You wanna take this from me? So I’m gonna take it and sell it instead.”
On writing, directing & starring in ‘Spring Breakers 2’:
Bella: “The producers watched ‘Color Your Hurt,’ which is the movie that I just wrapped, an early cut of it, and they asked me to write something to see if they would like it and they loved it, and now I’m writing and directing ‘Spring Breakers 2.’”
Alex: “First of all, you being in it, I’m already like, ‘Yes.’ You directing it, yes. You writing, yes. That is incredible. That’s so incredible. Also, because the first Spring Breakers was directed by a man. How do you think the sequel will be different with, you know, some female energy?”
Bella: “Some female energy. The female energy is there, girl. For sure. 2012 was such, which is when the movie came out, was such an exploitative time, and everyone was going through it. At that time, me and Miley and Zendaya and Selena and everybody being compared of who was gonna be that next bad girl, and Amanda Bynes, and everything happening. It felt like that was the time too and this time, things are different. They are crazy. There’s a lot of craziness. There’s a lot of litness. There is so much litness in this movie.”
Alex: “The maniacal laugh. I’m like, ‘Spring Breakers 2 and Bella Thorne. Oh my God.’ Is there anything you can tease or anything you want to just kind of set the groundwork so people have a little something to chew on?”
Bella: “We’re working with the original team is back, so we’re really excited about that. I don’t wanna get in trouble. I don’t wanna get in trouble, but what I can say is, it is so Litty, Litty McTiddies. I mean, from start to finish, it’s lit as f–k. We are having fun. If you wanted to go to the theater and have fun, you gonna have fun with this movie, that’s for sure. It’s balls to the wall. That’s what everyone says when they read the script. Balls to the wall.”
Alex: “Can you say if there’s. Is there anyone from the original in it or no? Okay. We’re not gonna say anything. We will be sat. We will be ready.”
The post Bella Thorne Says Hacker Threat Made Her Feel ‘Re-Raped,’ Opens Up About Suicidal Thoughts, Zendaya & ‘Spring Breakers 2’ appeared first on Just Jared - Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment.