Bella Thorne is speaking out against a director who once accused her of ‘getting back with him’ when she was just 10 years old.
In a conversation on Tuesday’s episode of actor and model Emily Ratajkowski’s podcast “High Low with EmRata,” the “Midnight Sun” actor recalled the shocking moment he thinks about “every day” that drives her crazy.
While discussing how young girls are too often sexualized early in their careers in Hollywood, the Disney “Shake It Up” alum said it’s “damn stressful” being a child actor in the public eye.
Detailing a particularly inappropriate audition she had with an unnamed director, the 25-year-old star said she flirted with him and made him “uncomfortable” during a casting session as a child.
“I once asked a director for feedback and I was 10 years old. The casting director calls my agent, and the agent calls my mom, and they’re like, ‘So it’s not going forward, because the director felt she was flirting with him and made him very uncomfortable,'” Thorne recalled .
Thorne said the crash made her “almost [find] the fault in myself. Although she recalled that “that wasn’t the problem” at the age of 10, she added that the moment left her in a sea of frantic thoughts.
“’What have you done, Bella? What you did? You made him feel that way,’” she recalled thinking at the time.
Stunned by allegations of inappropriate flirting at such a young age, Thorne added: “I don’t give a damn what I said. I don’t care if I said, “Eat my pussy now. [I was] 10 years. Why would you ever think that [I was flirting]?”
Thorne continued, “You’re also in a directing session; you really can’t say or do anything. Make the scene; say goodbye and leave. You don’t have time to sit on your knees or feel uncomfortable. What the hell are you talking about?”
Elsewhere in the interview, Thorne – who also said she was almost cut by Disney after wearing a bikini and chain on the beach – spoke candidly about the struggles of discovering her sexuality with “not just the whole world that chases you, but mostly men. ”
Speaking about how society pushes young celebrities into a ‘box’, Thorne said, ‘I feel like I’ve been rocking the word ‘sex’ for a long time and I’m going to keep rocking that word because it applies to me. since then.. I was so little and yet it’s something that I took back so much of my power by owning that word.”
Telling Thorne to “forgive” him for being a “freaking kid,” Ratajkowski, who starred in Gone Girl, went on to open up about his story of an inappropriate interaction with his agent when he was 16.
“They showed me the picture and I was with my friend who was also modeling with the same agency at the time and they said, ‘This face.’ That’s how we know this girl is badass. You need to teach Emily a lesson about this,'” the star recalled.
“I remember being flattered and obviously also so embarrassed and horrified, and now obviously looking back it’s such a shame that they said that,” she added.
In January 2018, Thorne said on social media that she was sexually abused at a young age.
“I was sexually abused and physically raised from the day I can remember until I was 14 when I finally had the courage to lock the door at night and sit next to her. All night. I’m waiting for someone to take advantage of my life again. I waited over and over for it to stop and finally it did. But some of us aren’t lucky enough to make it out alive. Please stand up today for every abused soul. #timesup,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
I need help? Visit the RAINN national online sexual assault hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center website.
