Just because people are more likely to see Bella Thorne at her thirstiest doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a serious side. She’s one hell of an actress, she’s part of the LGBT+ community, and she stands up for herself online.
In a particularly serious moment, Bella Thorne tweeted a grim revelation:
She is a survivor of molestation.
It can be easy, especially on the internet, for someone to not think about the words that they’re saying and the potential impact of those words.
It can also be easy to look at a young, beautiful, wealthy celebrity and assume that their life is just as perfect and carefree as it appears from their Instagram selfies.
But people don’t always openly advertise their pain or their traumatic pasts.
And there’s a reason that people try to discourage jokes about real-world horrors like sexual abuse, folks. Because it’s a real thing that happens, and you never know who — even among your friends — might be a survivor of something truly awful.
And that goes for tweets that you make on the internet about random celebrities.
So, Bella Thorne made an over-the-top remark about an outfit, tweeting:
“I would f–k this suit if I could.”
Honestly, anyone else endorsing products on social media needs to step up their game. Bella Thorne just raised the bar.
But at least one person found that praise off-putting, apparently, tweeting:
“What did Disney do to this girl?! I think she was molested.”
That is an unacceptable thing to say, even without Bella’s reply. Implying that someone who is open about their sexuality as an adult must have been molested to get that way is … awful. (And inaccurate; we’ll get to that in a moment)
Bella quoted the tweet, replying:
“Yeah I was. So it wasn’t Disney.”
That’s quite the bombshell to drop.
Bella’s never shied away from being blunt — she came out as bi on Twitter in response to a random tweet inquiring about her sexuality.
But revealing that she’s a survivor of molestation — we don’t know when, or by whom — is intense.
While she was under no obligation to reveal that, it was incredibly brave for Bella to share that grim piece of her history.
Just as she was under no obligation to tell anyone that, she should not be pressured to name her molester. That is her business.
Bella followed up that revelation just a few minutes later with a tweet with which we can all agree:
“The world can be a sick place sometimes :/”
Sad that she had to reveal it in order to shut down a hateful troll.
To be clear, though some survivors of childhood sex abuse are what’s called hypersexual, others may be sex-repulsed, and others might be neither. It doesn’t mean that, say, a hypersexual survivor’s trauma was somehow less bad than a sex-repulsed survivor’s.
Bella Thorne might be the talented and salacious actress she is if her life had gone differently. Or she might be very different. We don’t know. And she doesn’t know.
So let’s not dwell on maybes. Instead, if Bella Thorne chooses to share more, let’s listen to what she has to say.
