Bella Thorne Opens up About ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ of Childhood Abuse in New Interview

Actress Bella Thorne is continuing to open up about the abuse she suffered as a child, revealing that she believes she suffered from “Stockholm Syndrome.” The Disney Channel alum made the revelation during her Monday appearance on Good Morning America, where she opened up about overcoming the abuse.

“Definitely Stockholm Syndrome,” she said. “When you’re raised with someone and you don’t know that it’s wrong, it’s just an everyday occurrence, like no big deal.”

Thorne also admitted that she still holds anger about the abuse, though she noted that it’s directed “towards society in general.”

“I think that you have anger towards society in general. And our society clearly…this is something that is literally happening at everyone’s doorstep. And still, nothing is ever done about it,” she said. “We don’t look at it as a main problem, but it is, because it is shaping our society. It is shaping our girls to be different girls than what they were supposed to be.”

Thorne first opened up about the abuse she suffered in December of 2017 when she wrote in a response to a fan on Twitter that she was molested, noting that Disney had nothing to do with it. The confession came just hours before actors and actresses wore all black to the Golden Globes in support of the same Time’s Up campaign.

Opening up about the abuse again in January of 2018, she revealed that she had endured both sexual and physical abuse until the age of 14.

“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. All damn night. Waiting for someone to take advantage of my life again,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “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. Please today stand up for every soul Mistreated.”

On Twitter, she added that she “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.”

Speaking on YouTuber Logan Paul’s podcast Impaulsive earlier this month, Thorne said that the abuse put her “in such a dark place growing up, and I contemplated suicide.” She explained that living her life in the public eye only intensified those feelings because “everyone knows everything about you but there’s this one thing that’s so big and makes you literally who you are, it’s literally changed me as a person completely.”

Thorne has never revealed the identity of her abuser, though she opens up about the abuse and the lasting affects it has had on her in her new book, The Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray.