Leveling a new charge of childhood sexualization, American actor-singer Bella Thorne, who for several years was a regular at the Disney Channel, revealed that she apparently almost lost her job when she was 14.
According to Deadline, an American media company, while appearing on the Tuesday episode of Emily Ratajkowski's 'High Low With EmRata' podcast, she opened up about the several instances when she felt sexualized as a young girl.
"One time I almost got fired off the Disney Channel because I was 14, and I wore a two-piece on the beach," Thorne said.
She continued, "This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me that's, like, a body chain. I don't know? I don't care. There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach. I almost got fired. It was all over the media, it was literally viral in that time. It was, 'How dare this little girl do this? This is so disgusting.'"
The 'Shake It Up' actor explained that people were "putting Disney under pressure" to fire her, but ultimately they didn't.
She said, "They were like, 'Hey, we're getting a lot of heat for this. Everyone's getting heat for this because you're in a bikini on a beach, so she needs to make sure she goes out in boy shorts and a loose t-shirt next time she's at the beach.'"
Further during the podcast, Thorne recalled a situation when she was just 10. "I had a director give me feedback once and I was 10. The casting director calls my agent and the agent calls my mom, and they're like, 'So she's not moving forward because the director felt like she was flirting with him, and it made him really uncomfortable,'" Thorne said.
As per Variety, she added, "What the f--k are you talking about, man?! I don't give a f--k what the f--k I said! I don't care if I said, 'Eat my pu--y right now!' She is 10 years old. Why ever would you think that?"
This isn't the first time Thorne has raised the issue of her childhood abuse by older figures. In her 2019 book, 'The Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray', Thorne used poetry to tell about being molested by someone she declined to name from ages 6-14.
"He didn't have to deal with the countless times he molested me, / he didn't deal with the countless times I felt ashamed or disgusting," Thorne wrote in the poem. She blamed 'Stockholm syndrome' for not stopping the abuse and did not name the abuser, reported Deadline, an American entertainment news outlet.
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