Bella Thorne says the nude photo blackmail attempt she faced in 2019 was painful, but the public reaction caused a different kind of damage. Speaking on Call Her Daddy, the former Disney Channel star said accusations that she had staged the episode or wanted people to see the images “really, really broke” her.
Thorne, now 28, said she posted the private photos herself after an alleged hacker threatened to release them. Her aim, she told host Alexandra Cooper, was to remove the person’s leverage.
“I just kind of set it out as, ‘You’re not gonna keep taking this from me, so here it is,’” she recalled.
That decision turned a reported extortion attempt into a public debate about Thorne’s choices. Because apparently the person facing a threat was also expected to manage everyone else’s preferred crisis strategy.
Why Bella Thorne released the photos herself
Thorne said she viewed publishing the images as a way to regain control before the alleged extortionist could act. The response, however, included claims that she was faking the situation or simply wanted attention.
“You are faking it. You just wanna show us your private parts,” Thorne recalled people saying. “And that, to me, like, really broke me then.”
She also remembered recording an Instagram Story while feeling “completely” broken, upset and angry.
One of the most prominent reactions came from Whoopi Goldberg. During a 2019 episode of The View, Goldberg argued that celebrities should assume intimate images stored online could be compromised. Thorne replied in an emotional Instagram video, saying the comments made her feel “pretty disgusting.”
The dispute reflected a familiar problem in coverage of stolen intimate material: attention moved quickly from the alleged offender’s conduct to whether the victim had behaved cautiously enough. The technology had changed. The blame distribution had not shown much innovation.
What Thorne says the FBI did
Thorne told Cooper that the case shifted when the Federal Bureau of Investigation contacted her. Agents believed the person targeting her might be connected to another investigation, she said, and visited her home to collect information.
“So, now I have like a house full of FBI, which is like the craziest thing,” she recalled.
According to Thorne, she worked with investigators for more than a year and provided screenshots and other data. She believes the messages helped agents identify the suspect through his writing style.
“If I had not posted those screenshots, they wouldn’t have caught him,” she said, while acknowledging investigators might have found him later. Thorne added that agents told her the wording matched the suspect’s usual method.
Her account describes how she remembers the investigation. The publicly available federal record offers a more technical picture and does not say that linguistic analysis was the decisive evidence.
What federal records show about the investigation
The United States Department of Justice said Joseph James O’Connor, a British citizen known online as “PlugwalkJoe,” participated in the June 2019 compromise of a public figure’s Snapchat account. Prosecutors said private images were stolen and used in an extortion attempt.
The government referred to that person only as “Victim-2,” so it did not formally identify Thorne. However, the timing and circumstances described by prosecutors match her publicly reported case.
Federal records also indicate that the demand was not limited to money. Prosecutors said O’Connor and associates tried to force the victim to promote his online persona.
The criminal complaint described a substantial digital trail, including:
- Snapchat account records
- Login IP addresses
- Connections between multiple online accounts
- A passport photograph stored in O’Connor’s Snapchat Memories
That evidence does not necessarily contradict Thorne’s belief that her screenshots helped. They may have alerted investigators, provided context or strengthened the case. But prosecutors have not publicly stated that matching O’Connor’s writing style was what identified him.
The case extended well beyond one celebrity
O’Connor’s prosecution covered a broader collection of cybercrimes. According to the Justice Department, he participated in the July 2020 Twitter breach that compromised prominent accounts, as well as TikTok and Snapchat account takeovers, cyberstalking and SIM-swapping schemes.
Authorities also linked him to the theft of approximately $794,000 in cryptocurrency. SIM swapping typically involves transferring a victim’s phone number to a device controlled by an attacker, allowing access to messages, authentication codes and online accounts.
O’Connor pleaded guilty on May 9, 2023, to conspiracies involving computer intrusion, extortion, stalking, threatening communications, wire fraud and money laundering. On June 23, 2023, a federal judge sentenced him to five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to forfeit $794,012.64.
Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said O’Connor had “harassed, threatened, and extorted his victims, causing substantial emotional harm,” according to Reuters.
Thorne’s new account focuses on that emotional harm, particularly the judgment she faced after trying to stop the threat on her own terms. The court record supplies the technical and criminal context. Together, they show a case that was considerably larger than a celebrity controversy, even if much of the conversation in 2019 preferred to treat it as one.
