Bella Thorne has dealt with her fair share of social media haters. But the level of vitriol directed toward her after a recent breakup has left the actress shaken.
“[I] was getting death threats for a hot minute because they thought I had cheated on my ex, which is a total lie,” Thorne told People magazine. “When I woke up that morning — it f—ing sucks.”
Though Thorne does not name names, she was recently embroiled in a messy love triangle with actor Tyler Posey and singer Charlie Puth. Thorne says she dated Posey until early December. Weeks later, she was spotted cozying up to Puth.
Puth ended his burgeoning relationship with Thorne in a public Twitter meltdown by alluding to the cheating rumors: “No one should have their heart messed with like this, and I’m not going to be in the middle of it.”
Thorne says the backlash she received online was hard to take.
“It doesn’t feel good to think that everybody in the world just thinks you’re an absolutely disgusting person and just because I’m somebody where people know my name, it’s so much worse for me,” Thorne told People. “And people think that, like, we don’t get bullied in Hollywood — but we do! We get bullied by the public eye and fans and it’s really, let me tell you, it f—ing hurts.”
Thorne views this experience as a lesson in how to handle bullies.
“I’m letting kids know like, ‘If somebody’s being rude to you, you have the right to stick up for yourself,’” Thorne, 19, said. “When I see [bullying] on other people’s pages, I respond because it irks me to my core.”
And that’s how it’s done, folks.
Check out Thorne’s full interview on People.com.