Bella Thorne "wanted to teach" a hacker a lesson after he threatened to leak her nude photos.
The 21-year-old actress shared topless pictures of herself on her Twitter account at the weekend after an unnamed man told her he was going to make them public and though she is "so angry" about allegedly being blackmailed, she thinks the threatening texts came from a teenager so she is trying to be understanding.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: "This kid sounds like he’s 17, as much as I’m so angry and wanted to fuck him up over doing this to people I just wanted to teach him a lesson.
"He’s still a kid and we make mistakes, this mistake is a bad one. But I don’t want some 17 year old’s whole life ruined because he wasn’t thinking straight and being a dumbass."
And Bella hopes the alleged hacker will eventually learn to use his skills for good.
She added: "Plus, he’s obviously smart so if he got on the right side of the tracks he could actually possibly help our community and be an alliance. You can’t always tear someone down for their bad sides but more so build up their good sides."
The ‘Famous In Love’ star had previously shared the topless pictures as part of a text exchange with her alleged blackmailer and explained she wanted to take her "power back" by sharing them herself.
In an accompanying note on Twitter, she wrote: "For the last 24 hours I have been threatened with my own nudes.
"I feel gross. I feel watched, I feel someone has taken something from me that I only wanted one special person to see…
"For too long I let a man take advantage of me over and over and I’m f*cking sick of it," she continued in the note. "NOW U DON’T GET TO TAKE ANOTHER THING FROM ME. I can sleep tonight better knowing I took my power back. U can’t control my life, u never will.(sic)"
She also claimed the alleged hacker sent her nude photos he allegedly had of other stars and warned him she had called the FBI.