Bella Thorne has accused fellow US actor Mickey Rourke of bruising her genitals with a metal grinder on the set of a movie that they filmed together during what she described as “one of the all time worst experiences” of her career.
In a story on her Instagram account on Friday, Thorne alleged that the episode was part of a broader campaign to humiliate her while they collaborated on the 2020 thriller Girl. She wrote: “This fucking dude. GROSS” and relayed the account in writing over a copy of a BBC article reporting that Celebrity Big Brother’s producers had reprimanded him for aiming homophobic comments at the singer JoJo Siwa while they competed on the reality show.
A representative of Rourke did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thorne’s allegations.
Thorne’s post recounted how she and the Oscar nominee were sharing a scene in which she was kneeling with her hands zip-tied around her back. “He’s supposed to take a metal grinder to my knee cap and instead he used it on my genitals [through]my jeans,” Thorne wrote. “Hitting them over and over again. I had bruises on my pelvic bone – Working with Mickey was one of the all time worst experiences of my life working as an actress.”
She also shared a screenshot of a post on X in which she alleged that Rourke separately revved an engine and covered her “completely in dirt” for another scene.
“I guess he thought it was funny to humiliate me in front of the entire crew,” Thorne – the 27-year-old former Disney star whose credits also include The Duff and Amityville: The Awakening – said of Rourke, 72.
Thorne then asserted that she had to take it upon herself to “go in his trailer absolutely alone” and talk him into finishing up the movie “as he shouted crazy demands that he wanted” from those helming the project written and directed by Chad Faust.
“He refused to speak to the director or producers – so I had to convince him to show up and complete his job,” Thorne continued. “In fact I had to beg.”
She said it was “uncomfortable”. But she said she endured it because “the movie could not be finished without him [and]everyone’s work would’ve just been lost and completely for nothing”.
Thorne’s comments about her on-set experience with Rourke on Girl capped off a week of unflattering headlines for the actor whose work on 2008’s The Wrestler once won him Golden Globe and Bafta awards.
He earned a formal warning from Celebrity Big Brother UK’s producers after going on the show and boasting to Siwa, who is gay, that he would “make her straight”.
Rourke also invoked a British slang word for cigarette that is also a homophobic slur in the US before directing himself at Siwa and saying: “I’m not talking to you.”
Celebrity Big Brother UK’s producers indicated to Rourke that they would remove him from the show if he kept up with the homophobic language.
