Bella Thorne: 'I love my body hair'

Actress and singer Bella Thorne has defended her decision to show off her dark leg hair on Snapchat, revealing she likes some of the nicknames the picture inspired.

The edgy star made headlines when she shared the photo and confessed she isn't afraid to let her body hair grow.

In a new essay written for InStyle magazine, Bella admits she's comfortable being "one of the hairiest teenage girls".

"I go by 'Kiwalla Beastella' or 'Bella the Mammal', which I prefer because, I mean, we are all just mammals, aren't we?" she writes.

"Body hair is always hit or miss for a person. While I never viewed it as gross, I didn't really love it either. But I never understood the weirdness surrounding it. Guys feel more manly when they have body hair, right? So what's the problem with a woman wanting to feel more manly (or, in my case, just lazy AF)?"

The openly bisexual Blended star, "Because I have a vagina, I have to be feminine all the time? Excuse me, but no. Whether I'm a tomboy or a rebel, I'm comfortable with it, so why shouldn't you be? If you really want my legs and armpits shaved so badly, you can do it yourself. Wait, I take that back: I'll shave my own armpits if need be because I don't trust any of you city slickers next to my precious axilla!"

And she was thrilled to look up 'armpit' on Google recently and come across "a photo of a lightly hairy armpit on a GIRL".

"In closing, you may think of an armpit as gross and sweaty and smelly," she adds. "and yes, all those things are true, but it's also true that sweating keeps your body's core temperature down. Boom! Homeostasis. And the smelling ... well, I'm trying to look for a good upside, and the only one I can come up with is pheromones. What can I say? It's always mating season when you have a brush under your pit."