Bella Thorne and Zendaya forged a lasting friendship after starring on Shake It Up together, but the journey to get that point wasn’t easy as they were often pitted against each other.
“We had to deal with that so much on Shake It Up,” the Famous in Love alum, 23, told Us Weekly exclusively on Wednesday, February 17, while promoting her new single. “It’s like we said [in] a couple interviews when we were younger, how we explained how in the first season we weren’t friends and it took us those other two seasons of becoming so close. [It was hard] not having someone pitted against you [before] and then all of a sudden, now everyone is pitting you against each other. That fed into our heads. It made us not [be] friends in that first season.”
The “SFB” singer revealed that what changed it all was the duo having a “beautiful talk in the middle of a sound stage” as they filmed an episode of Good Luck Charlie, another former Disney Channel series. “We were really able to put our cards out on the table and understanding each other,” she added, noting that they were able to be “so young and so mature at such a young age.”
Thorne and Zendaya, 24, starred on Shake It Up as CeCe and Rocky, respectively, from 2010 to 2013. In the past, the Chick Fight star detailed how they were made to compete with one another.
“We wanted to love each other, but yet we were constantly being put against each other,” she told J-14 in 2017. “It was, ‘Who’s better at this?’ and ‘Who’s better at that?’”
Thorne, however, told Us on Wednesday that she has nothing but love for the Euphoria star. “Zendaya’s amazing. I f—king love her,” she shared. “She’s always been amazing and she’s always going to be amazing. I’m just happy that people see that. She’s getting the recognition she deserves. That just makes me so happy. I feel like when people put us against each other, it’s just like, … ‘Why are you doing this? Is it just because we’re women?’”
The former child star added that it’s best to “block it out and just don’t even listen to the noise.”
Zendaya, for her part, revealed to Seventeen in 2016 that she still has a friendship with Thorne. “We’ll post things to each other on social media, but we know everybody’s looking at that. So, if she wants to talk, she’ll call me or text me,” the Malcolm & Marie actress said at the time.
While Zendaya scored an Emmy for her role on the HBO series, Thorne is currently focusing on releasing her new single, “Shake It,” on Friday, February 19. The entrepreneur revealed that she wrote the track about “a special lady,” noting that this inspired the track’s accompanying music video.
“I feel like when you listen to the song, you just relax a little. It puts a smile on your face,” the Babysitter: Killer Queen star told Us. “You start to feel a little fabulous, a little batty. You’re like, ‘Wait a minute, hold on. I’m feeling this,’ you know? I feel like we just need it right now. I need it right now.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
