Bella Thorne has just announced her engagement to Benjamin Mascolo. The talented actress who became famous worldwide for co-starring in Disney Channel’s Shake it up, invited us to her Hollywood home for the first time after announcing she will marry the Italian singer.

She began working as a model at the very early age of six weeks old. After what has been an incredibly extensive professional life, Bella continues with her internationally successful career as an actress, singer and writer. Always well documented by the media, her life is not without controversy although Bella seems to be now in the best place she has ever been. She agreed to this intimate interview for Hola! USA to tell us all about her great love, her ever present intense emotions and yes, her Cuban roots!

Bella commented, “My first language was Spanish, but when I went into third grade I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I could not read in one language, let alone two… Then I went to a learning center. Their recommendation was that I stop speaking Spanish and concentrate in English because I could not read at all. It was very difficult and I could not learn how to read, write and spell until I was around 8 years old, when I was able to write a full page… It took me a really long time of struggling. I was also bullied a lot in school, surprisingly; even though I was in Miami, I was bullied at school for speaking Spanish. I still can’t come to understand it… I’m still so confused about that.”

Kids pick on anything and anyone, they were probably jealous…
I was always modeling. I was out of school so much, and I could not read… Not being able to speak Spanish makes me really sad, because when I go to places like Mexico I start to pick up the language after a few days and it stirs deep emotions in me. It makes me feel emotional. My father passed away when I was seven years old. He was Cuban so connecting to the Spanish language brings back sad memories. I struggle so hard wanting to be good at it. It is at the core of my heritage and Spanish would be such a great place to start, but it is so hard when I try to speak it… It brings so many emotions; I want to get over that.

Your father was killed in a car accident at the young age of 44 when you were 7 years old… How did losing him affect your childhood?
More than anyone can imagine. The worst part is that it will always affect my life. Getting engaged is a huge deal and knowing that he cannot walk me down the aisle totally sucks. So, for obvious reasons, it affected me greatly when I was younger… and it will never stop affecting me; when I have a baby… it makes me crazy to think that he will not be here to meet him.

You still miss him a lot, right?
It is something that only someone who has lost a parent can understand. There are those moments when you are sitting at a coffee shop and someone says something so funny that it reminds you of that person and you really think, wow, they would have laughed so hard and you are not even thinking and, all of a sudden, you are overcome with sadness. That feeling will always be with you. Death is like this big pile of rocks sitting on you and there is this crane on top of you. As time goes by, some rocks start moving away a tiny bit, allowing you to breath, literally…a little bit, -Bella says with tears welling up in her eyes- But there will always be times when there are still rocks and it’s still hard to breath, even though time is this crazy creature that helps… It never goes away, it’s always there, you are always covered by, you know, this heavy rock… And…Yeah, no matter how old I get, I will always be very upset to not have my father. It is so hard to lose anybody close to you. I have lost so many members of my family, I can count with a few fingers who are alive, but when it is one of your parents or a sibling it definitely is a whole new level of pain.

Do you get along with your siblings?
I have two sisters and a brother and we are very close to each other. I think they are so proud of what I have accomplished. It is just so crazy being these kids that started with nothing, our parents did not have much, they started from scratch, always having financial problems. Really, really a struggle and it is so crazy that we are here or alive or happy for the most part. There are always going to be problems but we are all happy and we do not have big issues with each other. I’m just so grateful for that.

What is the best advice your mom ever gave you?
There’s been so much advice she has given through the years, but I think the one thing she’s emotionally left with me and that I’m so thankful for is that she always had faith in me. Quite a few things, but this one got me where I am today. Here it is, this little girl who has this love for something and doesn’t know how to do it, she cannot read, cannot write, want to act, and get to all these things… -remembers laughing.- You, as a mother, have to decide so many times, how do I make the right decisions for my daughter because she wants to start that, and I want to make her happy and I want help her to succeed… It is just so hard in the industry. My mother has this mentality: “Hey, you do not need to actually know it to get started, you can get started and learn it then you can really study and be good no matter what.” She has always had this belief in me that I really needed, it encouraged me. I would not be able to do all these things, constantly working, constantly creating, wanting this, wanting that, I can really credit my mom for that.

Did you see yourself going this far when you were a child?
That’s the greatest thing about my Mom’s spirit. She is of the philosophy that you can have nothing and then have everything, you can have a hit… She has this belief in any scenario. It’s crazy, she says “hey Bella, you can go book this dance show even though you have two left feet and have no idea how to dance. Let’s do the audition; you can do this.”I remember I had to go to an audition for a horror movie, ten pages of a convulsion scene when I had to be possessed and you watch me go through periods of possession while I’m tied up to a chair. The scene was not even in the movie. The director only wanted me to do this because he wanted to see if the actress could give it all. The night before, I was like “Mom I am suffering, I cannot do this tomorrow, did you read the scene?” I was fifteen at that time. “How am I supposed to do this? I love horror movies. I’ve seen them all, you mention one, and I know it, ok? “You can totally do that,” she said, “like you do it every time… What are the two things you are best at? Screaming and crying, acting like you are about to die. Do those and now add the possession!!” I did so and the director gave me the role in the room. My mom gave me that belief –“you can do it, every time.”

Full interview: us.hola.com