Bella Thorne says patriarchy fueled attempts to pit her against Zendaya
You’ve heard the Zendaya comparisons; now Bella Thorne’s taking them head-on, blasting Hollywood’s divide-and-conquer playbook and laying out why women keep getting pitted against each other.
Backstage at a live taping of a Good Luck Charlie crossover more than a decade ago, Bella Thorne says she and Zendaya quietly ducked out between scenes to talk — really talk — for the first time. That private check-in, away from the noise of a studio audience and Disney machinery, is how Thorne remembers the moment they finally cleared the air that had built up around their teen partnership.
Speaking with Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy, Thorne said the pressure wasn’t coming from each other so much as from a system that pits young women against one another.
“With women it’s like, ‘We have to make you all beg for one spot …. The patriarchy has been doing it since the beginning of time. You go back and we were 12! What’s wrong with you? We are supposed to be best friends. We play best friends. It got pretty bad…”
Shake It Up (2010–2013) made Thorne and Zendaya household names as best friends CeCe Jones and Rocky Blue. Even as fans loved their on-screen chemistry, the off-screen narrative often cast them as rivals, something both actresses have pushed back on over the years. Thorne says that backstage heart-to-heart during the crossover was the first time she felt two young women on a set were encouraged to define their relationship for themselves.
Next up: Spring Breakers 2
In the same interview, Thorne said she’s stepping behind the camera — and in front of it — for Spring Breakers 2, confirming she’s writing, directing and starring in the sequel.
“The producers watched ‘Color Your Hurt,’ which is the movie that I just wrapped, an early cut of it, and they asked me to write something to see if they would like it and they loved it, and now I’m writing and directing ‘Spring Breakers 2,”
Thorne said the new film won’t chase the exact vibe of the 2012 original. She recalled how that era relentlessly compared young stars — name-checking Miley Cyrus, Zendaya, Selena Gomez and Amanda Bynes — and slapped on “bad girl” labels. Her pitch for the sequel: more women shaping the story and tone, what she summed up as unmistakable “female energy.”
Before the sequel, Thorne says she just wrapped her feature Color Your Hurt, the early cut that helped land her the Spring Breakers job.