Actress Bella Thorne – who came forward in December to say she was molested as a child – wrote in a new social media post that she suffered repeated abuse growing up. “I was sexually abused and physically growing up from the day I can remember till I was 14..when I finally had the courage to lock my door at night and sit by it,” Thorne, 20, wrote on Instagram on Jan 7.
“All damn night. Waiting for someone to take advantage of my life again. Over and over I waited for it to stop and finally it did. But some of us aren’t as lucky to get out alive,” she continued. “Please today stand up for every soul Mistreated. #timesup.”
Her use of the “Time’s Up” hashtag coincided with the numerous actresses and actors who wore all black to the Golden Globes in a show of solidarity in standing up to sexual misconduct. Many also wore pins supporting the new Time’s Up initiative, which was launched last week to fight sexual harassment and assault and give a voice to those without a platform to speak up.
Thorne, who rose to fame as a star on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up from 2010 to 2013, followed up her Instagram post with a tweet sharing a similar message. “I never knew what was right or wrong growing up..I didn’t know the person sneaking into my bed room at night was a bad person,” she wrote.
Her social media posts come a month after Thorne wrote on Twitter that she was molested as a child. That tweet was in a response to another user who criticised a photo the actress shared by writing, “What did Disney do to this girl!?! I think she was molested.”
Thorne then responded: “Yeah I was. So it wasn’t Disney.” Thorne has not named an alleged abuser in any of her social media posts. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
