While appearing on the Tuesday, Dec. 27 episode of Emily Ratajkowski’s podcast, High Low with EmRata, the former Disney Channel star opened up about the experience, revealing that she still thinks about the disturbing situation “every day.” “I had a director give me feedback once and I was 10,” the actress, now 25, told Ratajkowski during a conversation about the sexualization of girls and women in Hollywood. “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 podcast host, 31, was shocked over Thorne’s story, letting out an “Oh my god” while the Midnight Sun star exclaimed, “I don’t give a f–k what I said. I don’t care if I said, ‘Eat my p—y right now,’ she is 10 years old! Why would you ever think that? Why?” Thorne also pointed out, “You’re in a director session. You can’t really say or do much. You do the scene, you say hello, you walk out. There’s no time to like, ’lemme go sit on your lap or make you feel uncomfortable.’ What the f–k are you talking about, man?” The Shake It Up alum—who has previously talked about being sexually abused from a young age—also said that the moment with the director has left a lasting impact on her. “I’m trying to find, almost, fault in myself,” she explained. “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. Don’t even think that thought.’ It does drive me crazy.” But it wasn’t the only time Thorne would experience the same type of treatment in the industry, as she also revealed that she was almost fired from Disney Channel after being photographed in a bikini when she was 14. “There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach, I almost got fired,” she recalled, adding that she was instructed to wear board shorts and loose T-shirts on the beach from then on. Thorne also said during Tuesday’s podcast episode that being a child actor was “f—–g stressful,” especially when it came to expressing her sexuality and having “not only the whole world watching you, but specifically men and people and women around you telling you this is the box you have to fit in.” Fortunately, she also said she has tried to reclaim that power, stating, “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.”
