Bella Thorne says Hollywood treated her like a kid on screen and an adult off camera

Bella Thorne’s life as a child star came with a harsh reality: Hollywood expected her to be a kid on screen and an adult everywhere else.

Thorne began working in entertainment as a child, appearing as a model before taking on television roles in shows including HBO’s “Big Love.” Her major breakthrough arrived in 2010 when she was cast as CeCe Jones opposite Zendaya’s Rocky Blue in Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up.”

“You’re … spending all of your hours a day on set with adults, you know, that is – it’s like such a different, the brain’s like how do I–” Thorne explained during an appearance on “Call Her Daddy.”

“I didn’t so much hang out with people from the network,” Thorne recalled. “I hung out with Zendaya, we hung out … ‘Shake It Up’ was in a different time when Miley and Selena and Demi and those shows – They were all, I think 16, 17 when we were starting. So the eras are so different, and yet they intersect.”

She said people questioned whether she would become Disney’s next “bad girl,” something she struggled to comprehend at such a young age.

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“And I remember when I was 12, people asking me if I was gonna be – comparing us all, all the Disney girls and with Miley and Selena and this new era – and asking which was gonna be the next bad girl,” Thorne claimed. “And, ‘Are you gonna be like Lindsay Lohan?’ And like all these things at 12, 13 – you’re just, your brain is like trying so hard. ‘Like am I gonna be like what? Like what? What is the question?’ Like, oh my God.”

Thorne later moved beyond her Disney image with a steady mix of film and television roles.

Thorne has also made a bigger push behind the camera. In August 2026, she signed on to write, direct and star in “Spring Breakers 2,” following her feature directorial debut, “Color Your Hurt.”