Los Angeles, California - In 2019, former Disney star Bella Thorne released intimate photos of herself to get ahead of an alleged blackmailer, revealing that the flood of accusations after "broke" her.

Thorne recently recalled the difficult time as a guest on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

At the time, Thorne accused a hacker of trying to blackmail her with private nude photos. Before the alleged perpetrator could publish the images, the actor took matters into her own hands and posted the pictures online herself.

"I just did an honest Twitter post. Yeah, I just kind of set it out as it is, and you're not going to keep taking this from me, so here it is," Thorne said.

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She hoped to regain control of the situation, but the decision sparked a massive wave of criticism instead of support.

Thorne was repeatedly accused of faking the incident and deliberately publishing the photos: "I think the worst part of that was people saying, 'You did this. You are faking it. You just want to show us your tits. You want us so badly to see your private parts. That’s why you’re doing it. You want it.'"

Those accusations "really, really broke" Thorne back then. She still remembers recording an Instagram story in which she was "completely like broken and so upset, just mad."

Then the situation took an unexpected turn, as Thorne said she received a call from the FBI.

"They're like, 'Hey, you know, we've seen this thing. We think it’s our guy and like, can we come over? Can we get all the data? Can we see what this is?'" the 28‑year‑old recalled.

"They came over to my house, so now I have like a house full of FBI, which is like the craziest thing ever."

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For over a year, she worked with the FBI, providing the investigators with the information she had. In the end, the investigators were apparently able to identify the suspect based on his writing style.

"If I had not posted those the screenshots, they wouldn't have caught him – or maybe they would have caught him later, but they wouldn’t have had that direct source," Thorne said.