Bella Thorne Says Disney Nearly Fired Her Over a Bikini Photo at 14

By Greta Bjornson @greatbjornson
Published Dec. 29, 2022, 9:35 a.m. ET

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Bella Thorne

Bella Thorne is dropping one bombshell after another. The former Disney Channel star peeled back the squeaky-clean image of the kids’ network while chatting with Emily Ratajkowski, and after her uncomfortable experience with a director made headlines earlier this week, another anecdote from their chat is making the rounds today.

Before she starred in The Babysitter or Midnight Sun, Thorne was CeCe Jones in Shake It Up, Disney’s dance sitcom in which she costarred alongside Zendaya. Thorne, who appeared on the series from 2010 through 2013, told Ratajkowski on the Dec. 27 episode of her High Low podcast that she was nearly fired from the show and the network when she was photographed in a bikini at 14.

“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. “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.”

She continued, “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.'”

Thorne said Disney was “under pressure” to fire her for the photo, but she kept her job with the company.

“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,'” Thorne said.

Thorne also recounted an instance when she lost out on a role because she was accused of flirting with a director when she was 10 years old. She told Ratajkowski, “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.'”

Reflecting on her experiences being sexualized at a young age in Hollywood, Thorne said, “I feel like I’ve rocked the word ‘sex’ for a long time and I’ll always keep rocking this word because it’s what’s been put on me since I was so little, and yet it’s still something that I’ve taken so much of my own power back by owning that word.”