Bella Thorne has revealed she was once almost fired from the Disney Channel for being photographed wearing a bikini back when she was a teen.
The actress, 20, recounted the incident in an interview with Under The Influence, explaining that she didn’t think much of the bathing suit at the time and simply liked the design. Bella was starring as CeCe Jones in Shake It Up next to Zendaya when the snap was taken.
‘It was a sexy bathing suit,’ she said. ‘It’s black, it’s got a little bit of, like, fun little lace underneath. My mom picked it out. It was cute.’
Outrage: Bella Thorne has revealed she was once almost fired from the Disney Channel for being photographed wearing this bikini back when she was a teen
The actress, 20, starred as CeCe Jones in Shake It Up next to Zendaya when the snap was taken. She is pictured in 2011, the year she turned 14
However, Disney Channel execs disagreed, Bella said, adding that she got sternly reprimanded after being pictured in the swimsuit.
‘They said, “You’re lucky that Bella has such a fan base that we can’t afford to fire her at this moment in time, but if she does one more other thing, we will,”‘ Bella added.
The actress revealed that the threat was especially scary because her family was living in dire poverty at the time, following the death of her father who died in a motorycle accident when Bella was just nine.
‘The reason that we took Shake It Up really in the first place was because we were about to be living on the street,’ she added. ‘So it wasn’t really a choice so yeah, when it was like, “Hold up there”.’ Though I did get off the channel at 15 and a half, so it wasn’t even really that long of me being on it.’
Even though her Disney Channel stint lasted only three years, with Shake It Up airing from 2010 to 2013, it had a durable impact on Bella’s career.
Memories: Bella recounted the incident in an interview with Under The Influence , explaining that she didn’t think much of the bathing suit at the time and simply liked the design
Backlash: ‘They said, “You’re lucky that Bella has such a fan base that we can’t afford to fire her at this moment in time, but if she does one more other thing, we will,”‘ the actress added
Several casting directors, she said, would refuse to let her read during auditions afterwards because she was once been affiliated with the network.
Bella’s television credits prior to The Disney Channel included HBO’s Big Love, NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy, and ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money, meaning she felt confident in her drama background.
But she said she had to beg some casting directors to let her audition, asking them when she was just 15 years old to let her read at least the first scene.
Now, Bella attributes her early sense of hustle to her humble beginnings.
‘It’s definitely, like, when nothing is handed to you, you’re always scraping for it,’ she said.
In the same interview, the actress also recounted her thought process when she decided to reveal on social media that she was sexually abused throughout her childhood.
In December 2017, someone said about Bella on Twitter: ‘What did Disney do to this girl?! I think she was molested.’
Bella replied: ‘Yeah I was. So it wasn’t Disney.’
Making ends meet: The actress revealed that the threat was especially scary because her family was living in dire poverty at the time, following the death of her father
Impact: Bella also revealed that some casting directors would refuse to let her read during auditions afterwards because she was once been affiliated with the Disney Channel
She has since spoken about the abuse on Instagram and Twitter, explaining the abuse lasted until she was 14 years old and she ‘never knew the person sneaking into [her] bed at night was a bad person’.
‘I had been thinking about saying it for a really long time,’ she said of her original revelation. ‘I was just very sad.’
She recounted being in bed and seeing the Twitter comment suggesting she was molested. ‘I was so angry that I just tweeted it out,’ she added about her response.
At first, Bella wasn’t sure she wanted the tweet to remain published. ‘I was like “oh f**k should I delete it?” And I thought “no Bella, let it stay on there,”‘ she added.
After she sent a second tweet about the abuse, she took a screenshot and sent it to her manager asking: ‘Is it bad?’
He was like, Is it bad? Bella, there’s nothing bad about this. This is good. You are not any less of a person because this has happened to you. It was one of the first times someone had actually said that to me since it happened, and it really meant the world to me.’