When Bella Thorne heard about the saga of Weldon Angelos, an up-and-coming music artist who was busted in 2003 for selling undercover informants $900 worth of weed and subsequently sentenced to 55 years in jail, she knew she had to get involved.
Angelos, who was freed after 13 years behind bars thanks to a nationwide campaign to secure his release (and was later pardoned by President Trump), runs The Weldon Project, which is “dedicated to funding social change and financial aid for those who are still serving prison time for cannabis-related offenses.” And at this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas, the 24-year-old actress lent her celebrity to a panel on which she discussed cannabis clemency with Angelos and a number of other experts, and urged her followers to sign a letter to President Biden pushing to “grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all persons subject to federal criminal or civil enforcement on the basis of non-violent marijuana offenses.” The initiative has also been backed by other celebs, including Drake, Meek Mill, Killer Mike, and Lil Baby.
“I’m really trying to get people to sign this letter and make them a part of this movement,” says Thorne.
In addition to starring in the upcoming film Measure of Revenge opposite Oscar winner Melissa Leo, and a lead role in the Amazon Prime series Paradise City, Thorne has dropped a number of pop singles, penned a series of young adult novels, has her own cannabis line Forbidden Flowers, and directed a porn film. An online campaign has even picked up steam to have her play Lady Deadpool in the upcoming superhero flick Deadpool 3, which she is “so down” to do.
I caught up with Thorne to chat about her cannabis clemency work and a whole lot more.
How did you get involved with cannabis clemency and what do you hope to accomplish?
I’ve known about this for a minute because I have a cannabis brand and smoke cannabis—and my best friend Alexa works with criminal-justice reform. When I heard about The Weldon Project—and heard Weldon Angelos’ story—I was like, holy shit. This is insane. I felt that it needed the attention that it deserved, so I wanted to get involved.
What really resonated with you about it?
Oh, everything. The injustice itself is so upsetting. It’s upsetting to know that I smoke cannabis, I own a cannabis brand, and there are people who are still having their lives be taken away from them to this day and can’t get out [of prison] as well, even though you have it legal in so many places. That makes me so fucking mad. You’re taking away people’s lives, putting them in such worse situations in life, making them offenders, and then when they get out, what are you giving them to get back on their feet? Nothing. They just have a record now. Our system isn’t built to make people better or to rehab people—it’s just built to shit on our communities.
I’ve smoked weed on and off since I was 13, and it’s always struck me as nuts that alcohol is fully legal—even though it causes so many more problems than weed—while weed has been criminalized and demonized when it just makes you want to order a pizza and watch bad television.
Kyle [Kazan] was talking on the panel about how he was in law enforcement for around 25 years, and the amount of times where he arrested people that were being violent with alcohol, and how he never, ever arrested someone who was violent with marijuana. Here’s someone from the system saying this isn’t right, and still, we’re here. What do we need to do to get Biden to pay attention and do something?
(L-R) Weldon Angelos, Bella Thorne, Kyle Kazan and Supa Peach at the Cannabis Evolution: Culture, Equity & Opportunity panel during SXSW 2022 on March 19, 2022, in Austin.
Gary Miller/GettyI’m sorta lazy about it so I tend to smoke a lot of pre-rolls. What’s your preferred method?
I’m a straight flower girl. I’ve always loved flower. I roll—and only smoke it if I roll it. So, I’m rolling all the time, 24/7.
How’s your joint-rolling game? It must be pretty good.
Oh… you should see. Everyone is so impressed. It’s one of the things I get complimented on the most, is my rolling game. I can roll in a club with eight hotties’ butts just bouncing in my face and knocking over drinks on me and shit, and I can still roll that motherfucking joint. I roll it with these insane nails I got on and all these chains. You look at me rolling and think, “What is happening here? How is this happening?”
Picture me rollin’? You know, I’m curious if it’s a trip to think about how well you and Zendaya are doing in Hollywood now as adults, and all the projects you’re involved with, given that less than a decade ago you were both kids on Disney’s Shake It Up together.
It’s awesome, and it has been such a long journey. I love watching her grow. Going from two kids who were just acting on a kids’ show and working all the time to where we are now is such a crazy difference. We also had to work against so many odds coming off of the channel, and I’m just like, wow. Get it, us. Get it, Z.
I spoke with Dylan Sprouse not too long ago about his years trapped in the Disney machine, and he said he at times felt like a cog in a giant machine, and as though he lacked agency and wanted to break out. How did you feel being in that Disney factory?
Um… you know… I feel OK about it now. It’s taken me time to work against the Disney image and for people to understand that I was 12 and I’m now 24, and that’s a big difference in age. People do grow up and I’m not that little girl anymore. That was probably the most annoying fact, for me. But what people need to understand about the people that work on Disney—the actors, the producers, the stagehands, the crew—everyone works insane hours, and everyone busts their fucking ass to get that on TV constantly. Some of the most talented actors and hard-working people are on the channel, so for me, I’m just constantly giving props to anyone who’s been on the channel, because fuck yeah. It was a lot of work, but it’s helped with my work ethic now. I wouldn’t be able to hold as many companies under my belt if I wasn’t working intense hours as a 12-year-old. It just wouldn’t have been as easy for me as it is now.
I saw Assassination Nation at Sundance and I wonder what it was like to work with Sam Levinson on that—and if you were ever offered a part on Euphoria, because I could see you on that show.
I love Sam. Sam is awesome—so fun to work with, knows exactly what he’s doing, and loves what he does. I remember on Assassination Nation, I was like, what if I had blue hair as a cheerleader? Blue hair is awesome. And Sam was like, you know what? You’re right. Fuck yeah. Blue hair is it. And it made me so happy. And I was like, what if I used glitter and this and that—because I do all my own makeup on everything I work on—and he was like, yeah, let’s see, and loved it. He was so open to all my ideas for the character and down to play around and have fun. I love that type of work mentality. It’s always good to feel so involved in your character’s process. But no, I’ve never talked to Sam about Euphoria. But I’m here and I’m always down.
People always say you’re “controversial” and I wonder why you think that is? It strikes me as pretty silly since you’ve never been, say, arrested or anything like that. It’s odd that you’ve been branded that way and seems kind of sexist.
It’s so funny that people say that I’m “controversial” when you’re exactly right—I haven’t been arrested. I’m not doing bad things. Of course I am a woman, and that definitely plays a part in it. If I post in a bikini, it’s “She’s a slut,” but if a man posts shirtless on a beach, it’s “Fuck yeah, bro.” If a man posts with a different girl every other day, it’s “Fuck yeah, bro, keep getting that pussy,” but if I’m in a three-year relationship, and then break up, and then get into another three-year relationship, it’s “Wow, Bella Thorne, she’s a ho. Look at her.” I’m like, what? I’ve been in long-term relationships my whole life!
And people say, “Oh, look at her, she pops her acne on camera and shows people when she has bad skin and shows her armpit hair.” It’s so interesting to me, because the acne stuff—I did that because I want people to see that it’s normal. People have acne and I know the pain that people who have cystic acne go through, so I wanted to show them that I’m here with you. And what did I get? I get this rep that I’m 30, don’t wash my face, and must be a party animal because my skin is so bad, #UseSoap. And I’m like, what the fuck?
I wanted to ask you about the whole OnlyFans dust-up, because it seems…
[Publicist intervenes to say, “I’m sorry—we’re not talking about OnlyFans today.”]
Well, I just wanted her to clarify what she was trying to do there…
[Publicist: We’re going to skip the OnlyFans questions today. Let’s move on.]
OK. Well, you do seem to have a sex-positive attitude in directing the adult film Her & Him. We don’t see a lot of Hollywood stars work with people in the adult industry and help erase the stigma that they face—which I think is a harmful stigma. I’ve never understood why people in the adult industry can’t cross over into Hollywood given their popularity.
Thank you so much for noticing. I really do try, and I agree that the stigma is not right, and I hate the stigma around it. I have a lot of friends in the sex-work industry and when I see them go through pain, it’s heartbreaking. These are my friends. So, as much as I can be a voice, I’m always trying. And it’s another thing where people are like, “Bella Thorne is controversial because she did this.” OK, well now there are all these celebrities hopping on the sex-positivity train—making vibrators and owning sex-toy brands. Now people are finally talking about it, but when I do it it’s, “Why is Bella Thorne doing this?” Things are changing now, and I’m happy about it. My goal has always been to help destigmatize it. Even the idea of sex in general is so important, and it’s always been frowned upon. Women have been so uncomfortable due to the stigma that’s been put on them when it comes to sex that we don’t want to touch our own bodies or are scared to buy a vibrator because people will think we’re a “slut” or “dirty.” These things aren’t right, and I’m so happy to see them changing.
It’s good to see people emphasizing female pleasure. I watch a lot of movies and historically, sex scenes in movies have mostly been some dude jackhammering away at a girl—very briefly—until he finishes. And the female point of view, or the pleasure they derive from it, usually isn’t highlighted.
Yeah. One hundred percent. I think a lot of people see that, and a lot of women—and now men—are aware of this fact. You’re also teaching guys, oh, this is how you should fuck, and then they wonder why things aren’t working for them in the bedroom or the girl’s not happy. Instead, we should be having podcasts where couples talk about what’s right in their relationship and how they make things in the bedroom really work for them, because everyone is different. And again, like you said, you just see this jackhammer going off and you’re like, “Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to do!” No! That’s not it!
Bella Thorne attends the red carpet of the movie Time Is Up during the 19th Alice Nella Città 2021 on October 16, 2021, in Rome, Italy.
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/GettyYou have this really large social media reach—over 25 million followers on Instagram—and I’m curious how you think that’s affected your life. Do you think it’s been for the better or for worse? There are documentaries out there like The Social Dilemma and all these studies about how Instagram has impacted people rather negatively. And you, again, have such a large following to the point where each of your posts may make news and many millions of people are seeing and scrutinizing it.
Um… That’s a hard one. It’s like… there are good, and there are bad. I just posted something on my Instagram about SXSW, really urging people to understand The Weldon Project, read these stories, and here is something amazing I can do with this kind of reach. So, that’s a great part about it. Then, there’s the not-so-great part about it. Let’s say I’m drinking a beer on a boat. “Oh, Bella Thorne, you’re telling young people around the world they should drink and you’re promoting alcohol and blah, blah, blah.” Look, I drank a beer on a boat, man! What’s so bad about that? Or it’s stuff I’ve already mentioned, like posting a picture in a bikini and then people think, “Oh, this is so ho-y.” There’s the good and the bad, but if you just spend your time focusing on the bad, you’re going to be a really unhappy person. It took me a while to get there.
I’ve been in the media for a long time. I’ve been acting since I was 8 and modeling since I was six weeks old. All I’ve ever done is been in front of the camera, in a way. To understand where I’m at now at 24, I don’t want to read these things anymore. I don’t want to think, “Oh, if I post this, someone’s going to judge my acne scars or say my eyebrows look like caterpillars.” You do that to yourself in the mirror anyway, thinking about things that you wish could be better about you, and I felt that a while ago, because I wanted to better my mental health and I wanted to think I was beautiful. Now, when I look in the mirror, I point out all the positive things about me that I love instead of always going to the negative. And I’ve taken that approach to social media and the rest of my life, otherwise I’m just going to split off into depression, which I already struggle with. I don’t need to push it further on that end.
