At the New York Post, "Burned by fallen princesses, Disney is training stars to avoid scandal":
The House of Mouse is putting its foot down on starlets-gone-wild https://t.co/wqCCOoDa4Y
— New York Post (@nypost) March 11, 2017
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.Debby Ryan DUI? She was the goodiest of the goody-two-shoes child stars. My kid used to watch all of those shows at the time.
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.
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...
But I agree: Part of growing into adulthood is embracing the side of sexual being, and unless you're a cloistered monk outside of filming Disney programs, it's going to be hard to resist the pull of the young celebrity party culture. Young people want to explore. I partied like it was going out of style when I was young, to my great dismay later. I had to work extra hard in my late-twenties to make up for lost time. But I think there's a pay-your-dues kind of need-for-experience thing going on as well. You have to screw up sometimes before you know how to make it better.
In any case, more at the link.
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