Bella Thorne has opened up about the backlash she faced after releasing her own nude photos in an attempt to stop an alleged blackmailer — saying the victim-blaming that followed hurt more than the leak itself.
The former Disney star was at the centre of a major scandal in 2019 after claiming that a hacker had threatened to release private nude images of her.
Rather than wait for the alleged blackmailer to decide what happened next, Thorne published the photos herself.
“I just kind of set it out as … you’re not gonna keep taking this from me, so here it is,” Thorne recalled during an appearance on Call Her Daddy.
But taking control of the situation did not spare her from the internet. Thorne said the reaction quickly became vicious, with people accusing her of deliberately creating the scandal because she wanted attention.
“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,’” she said.
“That, to me, like, really broke me then. That like, really, really broke me.”
Thorne, now 28, said she filmed an Instagram Story during the fallout while she was “completely … broken and so upset, just mad.”
Then the FBI came knocking.
According to Thorne, investigators contacted her after seeing the situation unfold online and believed they had identified the person behind the alleged extortion attempt.
“They’re like, ‘Hey, you know, we’ve seen this thing. We think it’s our guy and, like, can we come over?’” she recalled.
The resulting visit left Thorne with what she described as a surreal sight: “a house full of FBI.”
She said she subsequently worked with investigators for more than a year, providing the information and evidence she had collected during the ordeal.
According to Thorne, investigators were ultimately able to connect the suspect to the alleged blackmail attempt by comparing his writing style with the messages she had publicly posted.
“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.”
For Thorne, the episode remains a complicated reminder of what happens when private material is stolen and the victim becomes the target of the public reaction.
What began as an attempt to stop someone else from controlling her images ended with Thorne putting the evidence into the public domain — and, she says, giving investigators a crucial trail to follow.
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Last modified: August 7, 2026
