Bella Thorne says she lost acting job at 10 after casting director accused her of 'flirting with him'
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Bella Thorne has revealed she was passed over for an acting job at the age of 10 after a casting director accused her of flirting with him.
The former Disney Channel star, who did not name the person, recounted the "insane" incident while appearing on Emily Ratajkowski's podcast High Low With EmRata.
"I had a director give me feedback once and I was 10," the now 25-year-old actress shared. "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 recalled. "What the f--- are you talking about, man?! I don't give a f--- what I said! I don't care if I said, 'Eat my p---y right now'! [I was] 10 years old. Why, why, would you ever think that?"
"Also, him feeling that it was a real issue," a shocked Ratajkowski replied, pointing out just how problematic his comments were.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images Bella Thorne
Thorne added that the formal setup of the casting process would have not permitted her to be inappropriate.
"Also, you're in a director session," Thorne noted. "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.' What the f--- are you talking about, man?"
Thorne said she's had to fight against blaming herself for what happened, sharing she's been haunted by the experience ever since.
"I'm trying to find almost fault in myself," she said. "Like: 'What did you do, Bella? What did you do that made him feel like this? And every time I'm like, 'Bella, stop it.' Even that thought right there is becoming part of the problem … it drives me crazy."
Ratajkowski then concluded, "If you need a more f---ed up story about Hollywood and pedophilia and the sexualization of children, I don't know that there is one."
But Thorne's difficult experiences as a young talent in the industry didn't stop there. At 14, she was almost fired by Disney while appearing on the show Shake It Up with Zendaya after she was snapped wearing a bikini.
"One time I almost got fired off the Disney Channel because I was 14 and I wore a two-piece on the beach," she 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."
The response from those who believed the images were "disgusting" due to her age, put pressure on execs at the company.
"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. "'So, she needs to make sure that she goes out in board shorts and a loose T-shirt next time she's at the beach.'"
Thorne recounted her experience after Ratajkowski told a troubling story about modeling at 16.
The model said an agent told her, "This face, this is how we know this girl gets f---ed…you gotta give a lesson, Emily, on this. But that is the reality of being a young woman in the industry."
Listen to the full podcast episode below.
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