On Bella Thorne's Instagram page you'll find a variety of posts: real and raw images of the starlet living her life, shots of her in full glam for photo shoots and events, and the classic Instagram #ad. Some people are critical of celebrities using their platform to try and sell things to their fans, but in a recent documentary, Bella said it's all just part of the hustle.
Vogue gave viewers an inside look into Bella Thorne's world in their short doc, Inside the Life of Bella Thorne. In the 17-minute film, Bella gave a lot of details about the behind-the-scenes of her celebrity life, talking about transitioning from Disney, the paparazzi, smoking weed and her business mindset. She also got real about social media, and gave some very specific details about how Instagram ads work.
"Instagram is 100 percent a job to me," Bella said. "I started out at 18 with literally $200 in my bank account and I bought this house a year later, a year and a half. That's all from social media."
Then she got really real and spilled how much she gets paid for these posts.
"For grid posting, it's 65 grand a post," she noted. "For story posting, it's anywhere from 10 to 20K, and for Snapchat, it's the same as Insta-Story."
That's a lot of coin, and it seems simple enough: just post a picture of you with x product and you make 65K? What? But the Famous In Love star also broke down how hard she worked to raise her following—which is now at over 17 million—and understand the ins and outs of Instagram. "It's from studying that shit," Bella said. "Demographics and ratios and engagement and definitely the more technical side of it."
"I was raised to think that social media is everything," Bella said. She explained that she knew people liked the more glam, sexy photos, the kind that first got her a million likes on a post, but she tries to balance that with glimpses into the realities of her life, like her with no makeup struggling with cystic acne, or in her house painting for fun.
No shame in the hustle, especially if that hustle got her the money that allowed her to become independent. And now, besides the occasional sponsored post, Bella's Instagram can actually show fans her life.
"I put myself out there the way I do on social media because I want people to see who I am," she said.