CULTURE

Bella Thorne Gets Support From Zendaya, Dove Cameron, and More After She Was Blackmailed With Nude Photos

Zendaya, Lily-Rose Depp, Lucy Hale, Dove Cameron, Tyler Posey, and more have all sent messages of support.


Bella Thorne
Photo by MediaPunch/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

On Saturday, 21-year-old Bella Thorne shared her own nude photos on Twitter after she was threatened with blackmail. “For the last 24 hours I have been threatened with my own nudes,” she wrote in a series of tweets, which included screenshots of threatening messages. “I feel watched, I feel someone has taken something from me that I only wanted one special person to see.”

Thorne said it was her decision to share the photos, telling the would-be blackmailer that “NOW U DON’T GET TO TAKE YET ANOTHER THING FROM ME.”

“I can sleep tonight better knowing I took my power back,” she added. “U can’t control my life u never will.”

To release someone’s nude photos without their consent is a sex crime, and can be prosecuted as such in several states.

When discussing the matter on The View, cohost Joy Behar quipped that she would post her photos at the supermarket if she had “that body.” But Whoopi Goldberg pointed out that when you’re famous, nothing is safe. “If you’re famous, I don’t care how old you are. You don’t take nude pictures of yourself,” she said. “Once you take that picture it goes into the cloud and it’s available to any hacker who wants it, and if you don’t know that in 2019 that this is an issue, I’m sorry. You don’t get to do that.”

“When they’re hacking you, they’re hacking all of your stuff. So whether it’s one picture or a million pictures, once you take that picture, it goes into the cloud and it’s available to any hacker who wants it,” she continued. “And if you don’t know that in 2019 that this is an issue, I’m sorry…You don’t get to do that.”

Thorne took to her Instagram stories to slam Goldberg for her comments. “Blaming girls for taking the photo in the first place? Is sick and honestly disgusting,” she wrote. “So what, a girl can’t send her boyfriend that she misses photos of her that are sexy? Things he’s already seen? I, as a woman, should be so scared walking around my home, being on my phone, doing anything? Is that what u want our women to be like? Scared of the masses for their sexuality?? Is that what u want? I don’t.”

“Shame on you, Whoopi,” she said in a video. “Shame on you for putting that public opinion out there like that for every young girl to think that they’re disgusting for even taking a photo like that. Shame on you.”

And now Thorne is receiving support from several famous friends. She posted screenshots on Instagram of supportive messages from stars like Dove Cameron, Lily-Rose Depp, Lucy Hale, and ex-boyfriend Tyler Posey. “Yo bell I read a little about your nude thing,” Posey texted her. “Really f–king cool what you did.”

And Zendaya, whose new show Euphoria includes a monologue about the right to take nude photos in today’s world, called Bella Thorne and sent a message of support. “[Zendaya] called me today to make sure I was ok,” Thorne wrote. “We talked a lot about this generation, the one before us as well, and how as women we shouldn’t feel bad about ourselves our bodies. Slut shaming is one of the biggest topics of this generation but yet we still keep going some how. It’s really really sad.”