Bella Thorne says she and Zendaya were pitted against each other at age 12 while starring together on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up, and that their relationship "got pretty bad" before a candid conversation set things right.

Thorne made the remarks on the Call Her Daddy podcast, according to Deadline and Variety. Shake It Up ran from 2010 to 2013 on Disney Channel, with Thorne playing CeCe Jones and Zendaya playing Rocky Blue — two best friends who land spots as background dancers on a fictional Chicago dance show.

On screen, they were inseparable. Off set, Thorne said she felt the two young stars were encouraged to work against each other. "We're supposed to be best friends," she said, as E! News reported.

The tension reached a point where it needed addressing. Thorne recalled that during a live taping of a Good Luck Charlie crossover episode — the 2011 instalment "Charlie Shakes It Up," in which the Good Luck Charlie cast visited Chicago and crossed paths with CeCe and Rocky — she and Zendaya slipped away to another set to talk things through, per Deadline.

Thorne described that conversation as her first experience of hashing things out "woman to woman" — a moment where both could speak and be heard. She called the heart-to-heart "beautiful," AOL reported, saying it cleared the air after years of feeling pushed into competition.

For fans who grew up watching Shake It Up, the admission offers a glimpse behind the glossy surface of a children's network where two teenagers were cast as best friends but, behind the scenes, were made to feel like rivals. Thorne, now 28, and Zendaya, now 29, were 12 when the show began — an age where the pressure of a hit series would be heavy enough without being weighed against a co-star.

Neither Zendaya nor Disney Channel has publicly responded to Thorne's comments as of 6 August 2026.