Bill Maher went after Bella Thorne on his “Club Random” podcast yesterday, lashing out at the actress for being candid about her fear.
After pouring himself a drink on the jump, Maher seemed to blur his words for the rest of the episode, even interrupting Thorne as she tried to explain her struggles with mental health and family education.
The discrepancy started when Thorne opened up about how she “fell into weed” as a result of her fear, which immediately upset Maher. “What is it with your children and fear?” he wondered. “What Causes All the Fear?”
While Thorne tried to explain that there was “constant bad, bad, bad everywhere you look,” Maher didn’t have it. He argued with the actress, saying it was a “dishonest argument” and that her generation “don’t know what’s going on in the world”.
Bella Thorne is tired of being slut-shamed
“So how can you be so damn concerned about what’s going on in the world?” said Maher. “I know what’s going on in the world! I should have the fear! I follow it, your children don’t follow it. You don’t know what’s going on in the world! What are you angry about?”
He later told Thorne that young children should get off social media – that’s where the fear (and apparently cancellation) comes from. The real kick, however, came when Maher continued to express Thorne’s fear, even after she opened up about her father’s death and other childhood trauma.
“I think a lot of the people who are most anxious have the most privileged lives,” Maher said, provoking a ‘hm’ of disapproval from Thorne. “Look at your life! Everyone wants it. Everyone wants to be you.”
The pair talked about young people ignoring certain major world events (such as Ukraine, COVID, environmental disasters) to prioritize their own mental health.
“I don’t know, I think that’s a really scary way of thinking about trauma,” Thorne said, defending himself. “Everyone really has their trauma. What is happening in Ukraine is unspeakable – that is something else. But as for trauma for any human being, I lost my father when I was eight. I was molested during my childhood.”
“Mostled!” Maher shot back in shock.
But Thorne was still ready for a more sober conversation about the real cause of her anxiety.
“Yeah. I went through shit, everyone goes through shit,” she said. “When you look at a book, and you judge it by its cover, and you say, ‘Oh, you know.'”
While Maher tried to make it clear that he “wasn’t judgmental at all,” Thorne still tried to put the whole thing in perspective for the real time host.
“Everyone, even on any platform at any point in someone’s life, that’s what we do as a society. We look at someone and say, ‘Oh, they’ve got it all. They must be so damn happy. You have nothing to complain about in your life,” she explained. “Yeah, well, you know, they’re still with their therapist every day. They may have PTSD and trauma and other things that haunt their dreams.”
Maher again tried to backtrack, admitting that molestation is “a serious problem”. Still, he refused to acknowledge Thorne’s (or youth’s) further anxiety problems.
“Death in the family—it’s so hard growing up without a father, damn it, I couldn’t even tell you how hard it is,” Thorne said. “So hard.”
Time and again Maher tried to help Thorne by telling her, “You don’t have to be sad.” Have therapists tried these yet?
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