Celebrity3 min(s) read
Published 09:02 06 Aug 2026 GMT
Bella Thorne has recently revealed why she decided to release her own nudes back in 2019, and it wasn’t because she wanted to.
The former Disney actress, who appeared on the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast hosted by Alex Cooper, discussed the ordeal in great detail, claiming that the culture of victim-blaming allegations that “really, really broke” her.
However, it was the incident that led to that which was at the center of a scandal seven years ago. After a series of her nude pictures were compromised and fell into the coercive hands of a merciless hacker, she was left in a precarious situation.
When the blackmail threats came through, Thorne decided that rather than fall victim to the extortionist’s attempts, she would simply leak the images herself, much to the surprise of her fans.
"I just did an honest Twitter post," Thorne detailed during her appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast. "I just kind of set it out as ... you're not gonna keep taking this from me, so here it is.
"And you know, I think the worst part of that was people saying, 'Well, you did this. You are faking it. You just wanna show us your t***. You want us so badly to see your private parts that that's why you're doing it. You want it.' And that, to me, like, really broke me then. That like, really, really broke me," Thorne revealed.
Then just 21 years old, she recalled filming an Instagram story in which she was "completely ... broken and so upset, just mad."
And the story didn’t stop there. Thorne was then contacted by the FBI, who were eager to help her catch the perpetrator.
"And then I get like a call one day, and it's the FBI. And they're like, 'Hey, you know, we've seen this thing. We think it's our guy and, like, can we come over? Can we get all the data? Can we see what this is?' And they came over to my house," Thorne recalled. "So, now I have like a house full of FBI, which is like the craziest thing."
Thorne’s complicity during the investigation helped investigators uncover the identity of those responsible.
"So, if I had not posted those screenshots ... they wouldn't have caught him," she said. "Or maybe they would've caught him later, but they wouldn't have had that direct source.
"And that's how they knew is because of the screenshots," Thorne added. "Because it's his exact writing, and they're like, 'This is his MO. It's the same guy, it has to be.'"
