While the 'Game Of Love' star didn't name the director, she said the memory of the incident drives her 'crazy'. Photo: Bella Thorne/Instagram
Bella Thorne won't tolerate anyone shaming her, past or present.
During an appearance on the High Low With EmRata podcast on Dec 27, Thorne recalled an experience she had following an audition when she was 10 years old.
She told host Emily Ratajkowski that her then-agent informed her mother that Thorne would not be advancing in the casting process because "the director felt like she was flirting with him and it made him really uncomfortable".
While the Game Of Love star didn't name the director, she said the memory of the incident drives her "crazy".
"I still go back to this every day," Thorne, 25, said. "I'm trying to find almost fault in myself. Like, 'What did you do, Bella? What did you do that you made him feel like this?'"
However, Thorne is now pushing back against the director's claim, given her age at the time.
"I don't (care) what...I said," Thorne said of the audition. "(I was) 10 years old. Why ever would you think that?"
She added: "Also, 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 go sit on your lap or make you feel uncomfortable."
Thorne has previously opened up about the slut-shaming she's experienced as a young woman in the spotlight.
"I am a woman, and that definitely plays a part in it. If I post in a bikini, it's 'She's a slut,' but if a man posts shirtless on a beach, it's '(expletive) yeah, bro'... " Thorne told the Daily Beast in March.
She added that though male stars are praised if they are spotted with "a different girl every other day," "if I'm in a three-year relationship, and then break up, and then get into another three-year relationship, it's 'Wow, Bella Thorne, she's a (whore). Look at her.' "
Experts say the term "slut," while it's thrown around casually, should be seen for what it is: a derogatory slur to police girls and women for their desires and behaviors.
"We have a lopsided, unfair standard for boys and men vs. girls and women, so that when girls and women behave in the exact same way as boys and men, they're treated differently," Leora Tanenbaum, author of I Am Not a Slut, told USA Today in March.
"Only men and boys have permission to exercise sexual agency. And when a girl or woman does the same, she's judged, ridiculed and regarded as being in violation of feminine norms." – USA Today/Tribune News Service
