This profile is part five of Queerty’s Out For Good series, recognizing public figures who’ve had the courage to come out in the past year in the name of the public good. The series will run through National Coming Out Day October 11.
Name: Bella Thorne, 21
Bio: Thorne grew up in the suburbs of Miami, the daughter of an Italian-American mother and Cuban-American father. Tragedy struck when her father died in an accident in 2007, when Bella was only 9 years old. The death had a drastic effect on the family and it struggled financially. To help her mom make a living, she and her siblings began auditioning for modeling and acting jobs.
Related: Mayor Jim Watson has already done a lifetime of good. Coming out is the icing on the cake.
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Thorne nabbed her first role in 2007 just after her father’s death in the drama series Dirty Sexy Money. Other roles on shows such as Big Love followed before she landed a leading role on the Disney sitcom Shake It Up opposite a then-unknown Zendaya. She’s appeared in a score of projects since, including Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, The Babysitter, Scream: The Series and Assasination Nation, as well as in dozens of commercials and print ads as a model.
Coming Out: Though she had dated both men and women in the past, Thorne self-identified as pansexual in July 2019. She explained to Good Morning America: “You like what you like. Doesn’t have to be a girl or a guy, or…you know, he, she, a this, or that. It’s literally, you like personality, like you just like a being. [It] doesn’t really matter what’s going on, over there. If I just like it, I like it!”
Making a Difference: Never one to conceal part of herself, Thorne lives a pansexual life, focusing more on how personality makes someone sexy, rather than adhering to a certain gender type or role. Moreover, she sets an example to her young fans–she has more than 21 million followers on Instagram–as a woman who doesn’t need to apologize for who she dates or loves or for owning her sexual prowess.
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gymmuscleboy
How is being pansexual an example for others to follow?
If you’re pansexual, you’re pansexual – it’s not an example. Is just being female an example for others to follow?
Donston
This is an issue with recent trends within the “queer agenda”. It’s almost as if some are pushing the idea that being hetero or homo or simply having preferences and particular relationship ambitions equates to being “closed minded”. While dating and/or having sex with multiple sexes means that you’re somehow a less basic, more open-hearted, “deeper” person. That perspective instigates homophobia and internalized homophobia, because ultimately people who want to be with someone of their opposite cis gender feel no societal and ego pressures to do otherwise. There is no orientation, identity or lifestyle that is superior or equates to you being better than anyone else. And where you fall on the gender, romantic, affection, sexual, relationship spectrum is what it is. This is the type of stuff folks highlight when they speak on the homophobia, gay shaming, anti-gay aspects of the “queer community” and when they speak on the general pretentiousness and self-importance of the “lgbtq community”.
Donston
On another note, Thorne clearly has drug problems, is battling mental problems, is poorly handling issues of past abuse, hasn’t had a seemingly non-dysfunctional relationship yet and appears to get off on attention more than anything else. I’m not sure she’s a great example for anyone. But she’s also still incredibly young. She’s got a long ways to go. And hopefully she’ll get there.
Brian
The only thing she is an example of is the dangers of putting your kid into showbiz.
She will do anything for publicity, if screwing goats became a trend she’d say she was into that too.
Heywood Jablowme
Depends on the goat’s personality! Do you expect her to screw just any goat?
Aires the Ram
Seems these days if you call anyone what they actually are, like, man, woman, boy, girl, homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, black, white, asian, american indian, indian, german, french, brazilian, russian, ANYTHING, that you’re deemed a bigot because you DARED call someone by their own name. This is pure bullshit.
Donston
I don’t see what that rant has to do with Bella. Bella has embraced a bi/pan identity and doesn’t claim she’s not female or not white. Folks have other issues with her. She’s a troubled yet privileged white girl who seems to be most comfortable in a state of victim-hood. She doesn’t seem to have ever been in a legit relationship with anyone but cis male, yet here is an articles talking about how she can “love anyone”. Her “relationship” with Tana Whateverherlastname ultimately came off as a stunt. Two very young people in an “open” relationship who was never with each other outside of social media formats. They came off more like friends who hooked up sometimes rather than two people in a relationship and two people who were romantically, sexually, emotionally committed or even connected to each other. Then you have drug issues, the social media rants, frequently looking “unkempt” and the admitted mental struggles. The industry definitely did a number on her. But as I said, she’s still very young and has plenty of time to get her shit together.
When it comes to identity I just go with whatever someone wants to put out there. I may criticize their reasoning for such identity and the social and political implications, but it’s not my place to dictate anyone’s sense of self. There seems to be so many different reasons for why someone identifies as whatever or doesn’t identify as whatever and so many different definitions of all this different shit. The reasons and motivations behind identities seem to be just as vast as the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotional, relationship spectrum itself. So, at this point it’s like, “who cares?” They people just do them. I will say that it makes me uncomfortable how all these identities can mean practically anything, but so many view “gay” as something one dimensional, “limiting”, “closed-minded”, something that is forced upon you and dwarfs you, etc. And a lot of it unfortunately gets perpetuated by some gay-identifying folks.
Cam
You can’t follow an example if you aren’t that. But wording aside, we’ve seen the same thing for ages. Each young queer celeb, or someone in an article states that they are “Attracted to the person” the personality, not the gender or other things (with the heavy implication that they are more evolved or less shallow)…
Yet if you follow Bella around, my guess is, that although there are many older, overweight, etc… with wonderful personalities, she will somehow, COINCIDENTALLY keep falling for young attractive people.