Bella Thorne, a former Disney Channel actress, opened up about her struggles in getting roles when she was younger.
The High Low with EmRata podcast recently invited actress Bella Thorne as a guest in an episode. Emily Ratajkowski, the podcast host, talked with Thorne about her experiences starting early in the show business. Thorne opened up about the hurdles she had to overcome to establish herself.
One particular experience that Thorne told Ratajkowski happened when she was just ten years old. The actress was rejected after an audition. The reason was a little unbelievable for the actress.
“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,” the 25-year-old actress recalled the experience.
Thorne then said it was unbelievable that it happened because she was a very young girl, and the audition was come and go, meaning she did not have enough time to interact with the director aside from the actual audition. “You can’t really say or do much. You do the scene, you say ‘hello,’ you walk out. There’s no time to like, ‘Let me go sit on your lap or make you feel uncomfortable,’” Thorne said.
“Also, him feeling that it was a real issue,” Ratajkowski responded.
Thorne said that was a traumatic experience for her, and as many victims of sexual abuse often do, she blamed herself for what happened. She said she needed to exert conscious effort to get through the self-blame. ‘What did you do, Bella? What did you do that made him feel like this? And every time I’m like, ‘Bella, stop it.’ Thorne explained.
Even though that experience stood out in her long career, she said it was not the only time she felt sexualized as a minor. She continued her tell-all with the time Disney almost fired her for wearing a two-piece bikini on the beach when she was 14 years old. “One time I almost got fired off the Disney Channel because I was 14 and I wore a two-piece on the beach,” “Blaming me and putting Disney under pressure to fire me and obviously Disney didn’t fire me, but also 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 the beach,’” she recalled.
Ratajkowski and Thorne further discuss how Hollywood treats child actors, especially women. They dwell on the unfair treatment of women in show business and by the media. They talk about the double standard Hollywood has for men and women, saying that the industry seems to applaud whatever men do, but when women do the same thing, its controversial news.
Bella Thorne is no stranger to controversy. Because she is a Disney alumnus, people seem to hold her to a different standard, and eyes follow her every move. She expressed disappointment with how the media sees her, “I haven’t been arrested. I’m not doing bad things,” “Of course, I am a woman, and that definitely plays a part in it.” She stated.
Thorne is a vocal advocate of anti-sexual abuse movements like the “Time’s Up” fundraising initiative. She is also active in the industry as an actress.