Bella Thorne Opens Up About Friction With Zendaya During Shake It Up Days

Bella Thorne's looking back at her time on Shake It Up with fresh eyes—and she's not glossing over what went down behind the scenes with Zendaya. The two were constantly pitted against each other during their run on the Disney Channel series, and according to Thorne, things got heated enough that they had to step away and actually hash it out.

"It got pretty bad," she said, recalling how they'd sneak off to another set just to work through the drama without the studio machinery watching. That's the kind of pressure that eats at young artists—manufactured competition, constant comparisons, the machinery trying to turn co-stars into rivals for clicks and ratings.

Now that both have moved past their Disney tenures, Thorne's able to speak more openly about it. It's a reminder that those squeaky-clean TV friendships we saw on screen weren't always real, and that the industry's obsession with pitting young talent against each other leaves marks. At least she and Zendaya handled it directly instead of letting it fester into actual beef.

Read the full story at Deadline → https://deadline.com/2026/08/bella-thorne-hashing-it-out-zendaya-disney-1237027440/