Teh One Who Knocks
03-13-2017, 06:31 PM
By Dana Schuster - The New York Post
http://i.imgur.com/2aQg4Bt.jpg
In the last few months, Bella Thorne has tweeted a photo of herself wearing nothing but high heels, and also Snapchatted a pic of her newly pierced nipple (seen through a sheer pink top) and one of her sharing a kiss with a bosomy pal during a vacation to Mexico.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trippy little bug🐠🐛🐍🐌 <a href="https://t.co/5Woke05Yh9">pic.twitter.com/5Woke05Yh9</a></p>— bella thorne (@bellathorne) <a href="https://twitter.com/bellathorne/status/823668833294622720">January 23, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It’s a far cry from the 19-year-old’s days playing cutesy dancer CeCe Jones on the Disney Channel show “Shake It Up.” But Thorne’s rebellion is par for the course for the kiddie network’s roster of female stars — many of whom have ditched Disney’s squeaky-clean image for meltdowns, arrests and scandal.
http://i.imgur.com/juUYNU8l.jpg
Thorne as CeCe Jones in a 2011 episode of Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up”
http://i.imgur.com/LyZcotBl.jpg
Kelli Berglund was the star of Disney’s “Lab Rats.”
Last April, 23-year-old Debby Ryan, the actress who starred in Disney’s “Jessie,” was arrested for DUI and pled no contest to the lesser charge of reckless driving after crashing her Audi into another vehicle in Los Angeles. Demi Lovato, who appeared on Disney’s “Sonny With a Chance” for two years, has been candid about her battle with drugs and alcohol, as well as bulimia and self-harm. Last April, two months after her Disney XD show “Lab Rats” ended, then-20-year-old actress Kelli Berglund was arrested for using a fake ID. There was “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens’ nude-photo leak of 2007 and Miley Cyrus’ barrage of hypersexualized, pot-smoking antics. And no one can forget “Mickey Mouse Club” member Britney Spears’ epic, shaved-head, umbrella-thrashing meltdown a decade ago (her former manager, Sam Lufti, said in a lawsuit that Spears was on drugs at the time).
While stars-gone-bad is not a new phenomenon, Disney’s sheltered teen flock trashing its squeaky-clean image faster than you can say M-I-C-K-E-Y — letting the world know they are sexual beings and unashamed to party.
Recently, Disney has tried to provide more guidance to its young stars with classes focused on healthy living and social-media responsibility. Speaking to The Post exclusively about the courses, studio insiders also reveal for the first time that the network offers “life skills,” coaching actors on how to navigate the wilds of social media and pitfalls of fame.
But if the latest batch of troubled Disney princesses is any indication, the kid-friendly channel still has its work cut out for itself.
“It’s the golden handcuffs. They are going through things anyone in high school goes through,” said Marlene Wallach, president of Wilhelmina Kids & Teens, who has repped Disney stars, including one young actress who appeared on “Jessie” and “Bunk’d.”
“But it is so magnified and there is so much attention given to them when they’re on a Disney show,” she added. “It’s just 1,000 times more intensified than that for your typical kid. The success comes at a cost.”
http://i.imgur.com/BgOu8Gjl.jpg
Berglund was arrested for using a fake ID in April, 2016, two months after the show ended.
Anneliese van der Pol, now 32, saw the cost firsthand. From 2003 to 2007 she starred alongside Raven-Symoné on the Disney Channel’s “That’s So Raven.” She pointed out to The Post that it’s more than just the bright spotlight that separates the network’s stars from your average 16-year-old.
“You have all these things that aren’t accessible to other people,” says van der Pol, who managed to avoid the public pitfalls that have plagued so many of her fellow stars. “You don’t really necessarily have to answer to anybody [except at] work, who’s telling you you’re great and fabulous all the time because they need you. And you have all this money and sometimes you don’t always know what to do with it.
“You’re on this weird roller coaster chasing [a] high. What can be better than that? What drug, essentially?” she asked. “Just going to the movies or chilling at home isn’t going to be as much fun because yesterday you made a million dollars . . . on a commercial set and everyone said you were great.”
The actress, who is currently filming the “Raven” sequel, set to air later this year on Disney, says being on the network allows you to afford more of whatever you enjoy. And since most child stars don’t have time for hobbies, when the show stops, they sometimes find other substances to replace that high.
http://i.imgur.com/TiQDw0Al.jpg
Demi Lovato, who starred on Disney’s “Sonny With A Chance,” has been candid about her struggles with
depression, self-harm, drugs and alcohol.
http://i.imgur.com/4m1aN0Zl.jpg
Debby Ryan starred in Disney’s “Jessie” (pictured left in “The Suite Life On Deck.) She was arrested in
April, 2016 for a DUI.
“People fall into depression,” she said, “and a big thing they turn to is drinking and drugs and sex because those things make you feel good.”
Disney seems to have finally realized exactly that.
In 2009, just two years after Spears’ public meltdown and Hudgens’ nude-photo scandal, the studio premiered a series of classes to help its young stars adapt to fame.
“We realize these are young people and they are in a transition in their own personal life. Rather than dictate what they can and cannot do, we try to provide resources with these kind of classes and partner with their parents to give them support and guidance,” said Judy Taylor, head of casting and talent relations for Disney Channel.
New talent attends a half-day session called “Talent 101,” which provides a road map about what to expect on set and how life will change.
“We talk to them about staying in touch with their friends who knew them before they were on a series . . . just to give [them] a sense of real life and to stay grounded,” said Taylor.
There are also monthly optional “life skills” classes, which the network has not previously talked about in the press. The courses, which started three years ago, focus on emotional and physical well-being and are taught by a pediatrician and a Ph.D. expert on child development.
http://i.imgur.com/bse1skZl.jpg
Raven Symone (pictured left in 2015) said she knew she was a lesbian when
she was 12—but didn’t come out until later because of the pressures from
“That’s So Raven.” Her co-star, Anneliese van der Pol (right,) said Disney
stars often find other substances to replace the high of being in the spotlight.
One recent lesson was on “common-sense media,” in which the group looked at mock Facebook pages of two potential hosts for a reality TV show — scrutinizing posts for reputation-damaging information.
“They have to decide who to cast for the host,” said Yalda Uhls, one of the life-skills instructors. “They are learning, ‘What are the teeny little things these people are posting online that may be inappropriate or inconsistent with who they’re projecting to be?’ ”
Projecting the right image is paramount to Disney. And that all starts with the casting process.
“The female tween star is generally conventionally attractive but doesn’t necessarily know it,” said Carolyn Chernoff, a sociology professor who taught a 2014 course at Skidmore called “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media.”
“She’s cool and hip but a little goofy so that she’s not threatening. But at the same time, she’s able to be seen as an object of conventional lust by gross and creepy grown-ups, as well as more normal or normative teenagers. There’s something both hypersexualized about her, but neutered.”
Michael Poryes, who co-created the Disney series “Hannah Montana” and “That’s So Raven,” says once he finds his star, he writes the part around the actress.
“If I do my job right, you don’t know where the character I created ends and the real person who’s playing it begins,” said Poryes.
Which can only add to the pressure for some of Disney’s starlets.
Raven-Symoné knew she was a lesbian at age 12. But she only came out in 2013, six years after “That’s So Raven” ended.
“My likeness [while filming the show] . . . had 15 people dictating what I should and should not look like. If I did whatever I want, I’m not gonna sell ’cause it doesn’t go with the brand. I was branded at such a young age,” Raven said in a docuseries last year.
She admitted that, while on the show, she simply assumed that one day she’d enter into a sham marriage with a man to maintain her picture-perfect image.
“I never thought I would come out because my personal life didn’t matter; it was only what was supposed to be sold as the ‘Raven-Symoné’ brand,” she said.
http://i.imgur.com/Gc9WUuLl.jpg
Vanessa Hudgens, pictured with Zac Efron in Disney’s “High School Musical in 2005,” was reportedly locked inside
the Disney offices for an entire day when her nude photos leaked.
“Disney has its very specific types, and when in role, they don’t want those kids to deviate from those types,” said Wallach, who also has an advice site called JustAskMarlene.com. “And when not in role, they still don’t want them to deviate from being those types.”
In a 2013 New York magazine article, Joe Jonas, who starred in the Disney show “Jonas,” recalled when Vanessa Hudgens was embroiled in the nude photo scandal.
“We heard that she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying to figure out how to keep her on lockdown.
“We’d hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn’t ever mess up,” Jonas told the magazine.
“We didn’t want to disappoint anyone — our parents, our fans, our employers — so we put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager should be under.”
http://i.imgur.com/LekQxrml.jpg
Disney now offers classes focused on social media, healthy living and
“life skills.” Rowan Blanchard, the current star of “Girl Meets World”
came out as queer in January, 2016 – to little fanfare.
It appears as though Disney has recently been redefining what it means to be a Disney star.
Actress Rowan Blanchard, who is now 15 and who starred in Disney’s “Girl Meets World” from 2014 until earlier this year, announced in January 2016 that she identifies as queer. Last week, Disney aired its first-ever same-sex kisses on the animated show “Star vs. the Forces of Evil.” Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus — who has swung from a wrecking ball naked and infamously twerked against Robin Thicke — has become one of the channel’s biggest success stories.
How Cyrus’ antics affect the “Hannah Montana” brand and reruns remains unclear, admitted show co-creator Poryes.
“There are certain times where I wish she wouldn’t do that, but it’s her choice and she can do what she would like to do,” said Poryes.
“You can’t expect Miley, because she did at one point in her life do a terrific kid show, live the rest of her life reflective of that.
“She behaved herself while she was doing the show,” Poryes explained, “but when she goes off [to] be herself she needs to be who she is.”
http://i.imgur.com/2aQg4Bt.jpg
In the last few months, Bella Thorne has tweeted a photo of herself wearing nothing but high heels, and also Snapchatted a pic of her newly pierced nipple (seen through a sheer pink top) and one of her sharing a kiss with a bosomy pal during a vacation to Mexico.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trippy little bug🐠🐛🐍🐌 <a href="https://t.co/5Woke05Yh9">pic.twitter.com/5Woke05Yh9</a></p>— bella thorne (@bellathorne) <a href="https://twitter.com/bellathorne/status/823668833294622720">January 23, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It’s a far cry from the 19-year-old’s days playing cutesy dancer CeCe Jones on the Disney Channel show “Shake It Up.” But Thorne’s rebellion is par for the course for the kiddie network’s roster of female stars — many of whom have ditched Disney’s squeaky-clean image for meltdowns, arrests and scandal.
http://i.imgur.com/juUYNU8l.jpg
Thorne as CeCe Jones in a 2011 episode of Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up”
http://i.imgur.com/LyZcotBl.jpg
Kelli Berglund was the star of Disney’s “Lab Rats.”
Last April, 23-year-old Debby Ryan, the actress who starred in Disney’s “Jessie,” was arrested for DUI and pled no contest to the lesser charge of reckless driving after crashing her Audi into another vehicle in Los Angeles. Demi Lovato, who appeared on Disney’s “Sonny With a Chance” for two years, has been candid about her battle with drugs and alcohol, as well as bulimia and self-harm. Last April, two months after her Disney XD show “Lab Rats” ended, then-20-year-old actress Kelli Berglund was arrested for using a fake ID. There was “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens’ nude-photo leak of 2007 and Miley Cyrus’ barrage of hypersexualized, pot-smoking antics. And no one can forget “Mickey Mouse Club” member Britney Spears’ epic, shaved-head, umbrella-thrashing meltdown a decade ago (her former manager, Sam Lufti, said in a lawsuit that Spears was on drugs at the time).
While stars-gone-bad is not a new phenomenon, Disney’s sheltered teen flock trashing its squeaky-clean image faster than you can say M-I-C-K-E-Y — letting the world know they are sexual beings and unashamed to party.
Recently, Disney has tried to provide more guidance to its young stars with classes focused on healthy living and social-media responsibility. Speaking to The Post exclusively about the courses, studio insiders also reveal for the first time that the network offers “life skills,” coaching actors on how to navigate the wilds of social media and pitfalls of fame.
But if the latest batch of troubled Disney princesses is any indication, the kid-friendly channel still has its work cut out for itself.
“It’s the golden handcuffs. They are going through things anyone in high school goes through,” said Marlene Wallach, president of Wilhelmina Kids & Teens, who has repped Disney stars, including one young actress who appeared on “Jessie” and “Bunk’d.”
“But it is so magnified and there is so much attention given to them when they’re on a Disney show,” she added. “It’s just 1,000 times more intensified than that for your typical kid. The success comes at a cost.”
http://i.imgur.com/BgOu8Gjl.jpg
Berglund was arrested for using a fake ID in April, 2016, two months after the show ended.
Anneliese van der Pol, now 32, saw the cost firsthand. From 2003 to 2007 she starred alongside Raven-Symoné on the Disney Channel’s “That’s So Raven.” She pointed out to The Post that it’s more than just the bright spotlight that separates the network’s stars from your average 16-year-old.
“You have all these things that aren’t accessible to other people,” says van der Pol, who managed to avoid the public pitfalls that have plagued so many of her fellow stars. “You don’t really necessarily have to answer to anybody [except at] work, who’s telling you you’re great and fabulous all the time because they need you. And you have all this money and sometimes you don’t always know what to do with it.
“You’re on this weird roller coaster chasing [a] high. What can be better than that? What drug, essentially?” she asked. “Just going to the movies or chilling at home isn’t going to be as much fun because yesterday you made a million dollars . . . on a commercial set and everyone said you were great.”
The actress, who is currently filming the “Raven” sequel, set to air later this year on Disney, says being on the network allows you to afford more of whatever you enjoy. And since most child stars don’t have time for hobbies, when the show stops, they sometimes find other substances to replace that high.
http://i.imgur.com/TiQDw0Al.jpg
Demi Lovato, who starred on Disney’s “Sonny With A Chance,” has been candid about her struggles with
depression, self-harm, drugs and alcohol.
http://i.imgur.com/4m1aN0Zl.jpg
Debby Ryan starred in Disney’s “Jessie” (pictured left in “The Suite Life On Deck.) She was arrested in
April, 2016 for a DUI.
“People fall into depression,” she said, “and a big thing they turn to is drinking and drugs and sex because those things make you feel good.”
Disney seems to have finally realized exactly that.
In 2009, just two years after Spears’ public meltdown and Hudgens’ nude-photo scandal, the studio premiered a series of classes to help its young stars adapt to fame.
“We realize these are young people and they are in a transition in their own personal life. Rather than dictate what they can and cannot do, we try to provide resources with these kind of classes and partner with their parents to give them support and guidance,” said Judy Taylor, head of casting and talent relations for Disney Channel.
New talent attends a half-day session called “Talent 101,” which provides a road map about what to expect on set and how life will change.
“We talk to them about staying in touch with their friends who knew them before they were on a series . . . just to give [them] a sense of real life and to stay grounded,” said Taylor.
There are also monthly optional “life skills” classes, which the network has not previously talked about in the press. The courses, which started three years ago, focus on emotional and physical well-being and are taught by a pediatrician and a Ph.D. expert on child development.
http://i.imgur.com/bse1skZl.jpg
Raven Symone (pictured left in 2015) said she knew she was a lesbian when
she was 12—but didn’t come out until later because of the pressures from
“That’s So Raven.” Her co-star, Anneliese van der Pol (right,) said Disney
stars often find other substances to replace the high of being in the spotlight.
One recent lesson was on “common-sense media,” in which the group looked at mock Facebook pages of two potential hosts for a reality TV show — scrutinizing posts for reputation-damaging information.
“They have to decide who to cast for the host,” said Yalda Uhls, one of the life-skills instructors. “They are learning, ‘What are the teeny little things these people are posting online that may be inappropriate or inconsistent with who they’re projecting to be?’ ”
Projecting the right image is paramount to Disney. And that all starts with the casting process.
“The female tween star is generally conventionally attractive but doesn’t necessarily know it,” said Carolyn Chernoff, a sociology professor who taught a 2014 course at Skidmore called “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media.”
“She’s cool and hip but a little goofy so that she’s not threatening. But at the same time, she’s able to be seen as an object of conventional lust by gross and creepy grown-ups, as well as more normal or normative teenagers. There’s something both hypersexualized about her, but neutered.”
Michael Poryes, who co-created the Disney series “Hannah Montana” and “That’s So Raven,” says once he finds his star, he writes the part around the actress.
“If I do my job right, you don’t know where the character I created ends and the real person who’s playing it begins,” said Poryes.
Which can only add to the pressure for some of Disney’s starlets.
Raven-Symoné knew she was a lesbian at age 12. But she only came out in 2013, six years after “That’s So Raven” ended.
“My likeness [while filming the show] . . . had 15 people dictating what I should and should not look like. If I did whatever I want, I’m not gonna sell ’cause it doesn’t go with the brand. I was branded at such a young age,” Raven said in a docuseries last year.
She admitted that, while on the show, she simply assumed that one day she’d enter into a sham marriage with a man to maintain her picture-perfect image.
“I never thought I would come out because my personal life didn’t matter; it was only what was supposed to be sold as the ‘Raven-Symoné’ brand,” she said.
http://i.imgur.com/Gc9WUuLl.jpg
Vanessa Hudgens, pictured with Zac Efron in Disney’s “High School Musical in 2005,” was reportedly locked inside
the Disney offices for an entire day when her nude photos leaked.
“Disney has its very specific types, and when in role, they don’t want those kids to deviate from those types,” said Wallach, who also has an advice site called JustAskMarlene.com. “And when not in role, they still don’t want them to deviate from being those types.”
In a 2013 New York magazine article, Joe Jonas, who starred in the Disney show “Jonas,” recalled when Vanessa Hudgens was embroiled in the nude photo scandal.
“We heard that she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying to figure out how to keep her on lockdown.
“We’d hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn’t ever mess up,” Jonas told the magazine.
“We didn’t want to disappoint anyone — our parents, our fans, our employers — so we put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager should be under.”
http://i.imgur.com/LekQxrml.jpg
Disney now offers classes focused on social media, healthy living and
“life skills.” Rowan Blanchard, the current star of “Girl Meets World”
came out as queer in January, 2016 – to little fanfare.
It appears as though Disney has recently been redefining what it means to be a Disney star.
Actress Rowan Blanchard, who is now 15 and who starred in Disney’s “Girl Meets World” from 2014 until earlier this year, announced in January 2016 that she identifies as queer. Last week, Disney aired its first-ever same-sex kisses on the animated show “Star vs. the Forces of Evil.” Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus — who has swung from a wrecking ball naked and infamously twerked against Robin Thicke — has become one of the channel’s biggest success stories.
How Cyrus’ antics affect the “Hannah Montana” brand and reruns remains unclear, admitted show co-creator Poryes.
“There are certain times where I wish she wouldn’t do that, but it’s her choice and she can do what she would like to do,” said Poryes.
“You can’t expect Miley, because she did at one point in her life do a terrific kid show, live the rest of her life reflective of that.
“She behaved herself while she was doing the show,” Poryes explained, “but when she goes off [to] be herself she needs to be who she is.”