Lizzie McGuire character was gay in axed Disney revival
Lizzie Maguire’s scrapped Disney reboot would have included LGBTQ+ representation. (Getty)
A writer for the cancelled Lizzie McGuire reboot has revealed that one of the main characters would have been written as gay.
One of Disney’s most memorable noughties shows, Lizzie McGuire followed a middle-school girl (played by Hilary Duff) navigating teenage issues while fumbling through life with her best friends, her annoying younger brother and her doting parents.
Premiering in 2001, it made a global star of Duff, and featured Adam Lamberg, as David “Gordo” Gordon, and Lalaine Vergara-Paras as Miranda Sanchez.
The series concluded in 2004 but in 2019, fans were elated to find that the series was earmarked for a Disney+ revival. However, their dreams were crushed when the plans fell through just one year later.
Now, writer Jonathan Hurwitz has taken to TikTok to reveal several behind-the-scenes secrets about the cancelled show, including that Lizzie’s best friend Miranda was going to be written a lesbian.
“We didn’t want fans of the original to feel we abandoned that Lizzie-Miranda relationship, so we were planning a storyline for her,” Hurwitz said.
“We talked a lot about adult Miranda, and her being a musician was part of the discussion, so someone who’s on tour with a band. Her being queer was also part of the discussion, so you [probably] have met the woman that she’s in a relationship with.
“As for Lalaine’s involvement, I really don’t know if casting ever reached out to her. Her manager and I happened to be at the same event and he came up to me, and said that Lalaine was open to being involved, so I’m hopeful that we could’ve actually had her.”
Elsewhere, he claimed that the escapades 30-year-old Lizzie would have had weren’t “comfortable” for Disney and that this played a role in the planned reboot being dropped.
The first episode would have shown Lizzie McGuire’s new life as a New York interior designer, where she was living with her gay roommate, and dating a chef.
However, in episode two, she would be forced to move back to her childhood home in California after finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her.
The ending of that episode was what “probably” caused tension, with Lizzie receiving a text from her childhood crush, Ethan Craft. The opening of the unfinished third episode insinuated that the pair slept together, because Lizzie would be seen waking up in Ethan’s bed, wearing his t-shirt.
“Animated Lizzie pops up and she has this little checklist, like a to-do list, and Ethan is on the list and she checks it off,” Hurwitz added.
“I think she says something like: ‘I checked that box – dramatic pause – twice’.”
In the comments section of the post, a fan asked if there were storylines that Disney “wasn’t comfortable with,” and Hurwitz claimed that this hook-up was “probably one of them”.
