If you want to know just how talented Disney Channel stars are, look no further than their
convincing on-screen friendships.
Because in reality, when the cameras stopped rolling, they couldn't get along no matter
how hard they tried.
There was nothing simple about the epic feud between Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff.
All of the butterfly clips in the world couldn't hold together their fractured relationship.
Their love triangle with Aaron Carter is so significant in teen celeb history that it
should have its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The saga began in 2001 when Carter started dating Duff on his 13th birthday.
A year and a half later, he dumped the Lizzie McGuire star and started dating Lohan.
They were together for a few months before he went back to Duff, who ultimately dumped
him when he reportedly cheated on her with someone else.
After that, it was no-holds-barred for these Disney stars.
Lohan reportedly spread lies about Duff to her A Cinderella Story co-star Chad Michael
Murray, made fun of her on Saturday Night Live, and ranted about her on the set of Mean
Girls.
Duff finally set the record straight in a 2008 Allure interview, saying,
"I've never stolen anyone's boyfriend!...[Lohan] was talking about it, and I wasn't.
It made us both look bad and put up a big weirdness.
Really she was just a girl my age.
We are fine now, by the way."
Sounds like this feud is so yesterday.
"So yesterday!
So yesterday!"
In 2015, Tumblr was the Holy Grail of teen drama.
Young Hollywood notoriously used the platform to spread rumors and spill some pretty scalding
tea.
This was absolutely the case for Debby Ryan, who revealed that she may or may not have
been feuding with her Jessie co-star Skai Jackson.
In the Tumblr post in question, a user claimed that Jackson accused Ryan of bullying her
and of having a secret Twitter account where she spread hate and rumors about the star.
Ryan admitted that she understood why a 12-year-old would be insecure about her co-star who was
the lead of the show as well as a producer and director.
She also revealed that she tried to make the set as "joyful" as possible by giving the
younger cast members gifts and taking them to amusement parks.
Unfortunately, as she put it,
"Bitterness is not fixable by roller coasters and treats."
It appeared that Ryan was blaming Jackson's parents for the feud, even though she didn't
name names.
As she wrote,
"It's unprofessional to slander coworkers online, but if I had one wish for every child
that’s an actor, especially those that tend to be the mouthpiece for parental maliciousness,
I'd wish for complete contentment, emotional security, and that they'd somehow find the
joy in telling stories."
For most of their lives, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato were best friends.
They first worked together on Barney & Friends in 2002, and by the time they starred together
in Princess Protection Program, they were inseparable.
But then it happened: the "ask Taylor" heard round the world.
In 2010, Lovato was standing outside her hotel in London when she snidely remarked "ask Taylor"
to a fan who questioned her about Gomez.
This was clearly a shade-filled reference to Gomez's relationship with Taylor Swift.
To be fair, at the time, Lovato was struggling with addiction, and Gomez ultimately blamed
herself for their falling out.
As Gomez told Seventeen in 2014,
"I've known her since we were seven, and we did fall apart for a while.
She was going through things and I was so young and it was confusing.
I processed it saying, 'OK, I don't understand what she's going through so I'm just going
to do this.'
I don't think it was fair, and I'm so happy that I have her back in my life now."
Since then, the pair have had their ups and downs, with Lovato unfollowing Gomez on Twitter
in 2014 before smoothing things over the following year.
Nonetheless, they've always supported each other when it comes to the big stuff, including
Gomez's kidney transplant and Lovato's relapse.
Bella Thorne and Zendaya have been close friends since their Disney period, but strangely enough,
in the early days of Shake It Up, they didn't get along.
In a 2017 interview with J-14, Thorne revealed,
"Zendaya and I were put in a very unfortunate position where we were kind of forced to compete
against each other, which made the whole first season of the show just very awkward for us.
We wanted to love each other, but yet we were constantly being put against each other.
It was, 'Who's better at this?' and 'Who's better at that?'"
Thorne didn't elaborate about who was actually pitting the girls against each other.
Maybe it was Disney execs or simply societal pressures.
We'll never know for sure, but it's all water under the bridge now.
The pair had an emotional, tear-filled conversation during Season 2 where they laid it all out
on the table and made amends, and according to Thorne, that's when they became best friends.
"What is the best part about working together again?"
"Probably just getting to have our good old girl talks again."
Miley Cyrus and Emily Osment played best friends on Hannah Montana, which is a true testament
to their acting abilities.
Because in reality, the pair didn't actually get along, at least according to Cyrus' 2009
memoir Miles To Go.
Cyrus claimed that she tried to be real-life friends with her on-screen BFF, but they always
ended up arguing.
As she put it,
"The show felt real to me, and I wanted my relationship with Lilly to feel real, too.
I knew it didn't have to, show business is show business, but I was disappointed.
There were times when I didn't think we could ever be friends.
We just couldn't figure out how to get along."
Sometimes you can't have the best of both worlds, but it seems like whatever feud the
pair had wasn't eternal.
In the years since the show ended, Osment started randomly sliding into Cyrus' Twitter
timeline.
And by 2018, Cyrus was retweeting a photo that Osment posted while wishing she could
reunite with her Hannah Montana family.
Nostalgia will get you every time.
The Cheetah Girls were a driving force of female empowerment and unyielding friendship.
They rivaled Josie and the Pussycats and the Spice Girls when it comes to rock 'n' roll
girl power.
Simply put, they all knew how to pull off some cheetah print and female empowerment.
Unfortunately, things got a little dark for these Disney stars, and we're not even talking
about that time Adrienne Bailon almost married Rob Kardashian.
"I have my ex-boyfriend's name on my butt, on my bottom.
Not my favorite tattoo, and that's the one I definitely want to get removed."
The core of the conflicts appeared to stem from the fact that some of The Cheetah Girls
were already an existing girl group called 3LW before they brought in Raven-Symoné.
In an interview with the National Ledger, Simoné admitted that there were "territorial
issues" and "catfights" when she reunited with the cast for the second movie, especially
because the other girls bonded on tour without her.
"Okay, yeah, my picture is bigger than everybody else's, but hey, I did write the songs."
"Hold up, those were my ideas, too."
Perhaps tellingly, Simoné did not return for the third film.
High School Musical's Sharpay and Ryan Evans weren't just musical collaborators who devoted
every ounce of their energy to the theater.
They were also best friends, except that they actually weren't.
In 2017, Ashley Tisdale reunited with her HSM co-star Lucas Grabeel in a video for her
YouTube channel.
It was then that the truth finally came out: the on-screen siblings actually hated each
other while filming High School Musical.
"We were not close.
We were not good friends.
Let's be honest, okay?
It's been ten years, we can totally talk about this now.
We hated each other."
Tisdale revealed that part of the problem was that they didn't really know each other.
She even admitted that her real personality was similar to Sharpay's.
And as fans know, Sharpay has some, shall we say, less than desirable qualities.
Ultimately, it all worked out happily, as Tisdale and Grabeel became extremely close
after HSM wrapped.
"I've always had a love for you.
You're literally, like, my twin brother."
"I love you, too."
In the golden days of the Disney Channel, two sets of brothers reigned supreme: the
Sprouses and the Jonases.
The former rose to popularity on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and the latter blew
up with Camp Rock.
Though there's no indication that these stars didn't get along while under contract with
the network, a feud certainly emerged once they were free from the Mouse House.
The drama started in 2013 when Joe Jonas penned an essay for New York Magazine that slammed
his time with Disney and trashed the show Jonas as, quote, "weird slapstick humor that
only a 10-year-old would laugh at."
He also explained,
"Being a part of the Disney thing for so long will make you not want to be this perfect
little puppet forever.
Eventually, I hit a limit and thought, 'Screw all this I'm just going to show people who
I am.'"
This sentiment didn't sit well with Dylan Sprouse, who claimed that Joe was a "bad artist"
if he bought into Disney's, quote, "rigid structure to achievement."
As he wrote in a Tumblr post,
"First, I think it’s bulls--- that they were being robbed of choice or creativity.
If they wanted too, they could have told Disney 'NO.' Cole and I did this hundreds of times
and we ended up all right.
The only reason they didn't is because, like many of the people on that channel, I think
they fell for the allure of fame."
Jake T. Austin and Selena Gomez played siblings on Wizards of Waverly Place, and by all accounts,
it seemed like they were great friends.
Hints of trouble between the two only started to come to light when Gomez signed on for
the gritty film Spring Breakers the same year that Wizards was coming to an end.
Apparently, Austin wasn't thrilled that Gomez was leaving the network.
In a since-deleted tweet, he clearly threw some shade at his on-screen sister for taking
on a new role by posting,
"When an artists' definition of 'growing with their fans' is creating content they aren't
even allowed to see..."
Gomez didn't publicly acknowledge Austin's comment, but she did fiercely defend her decision
to take on the controversial role while doing press for Spring Breakers' press run.
In March 2013, she told Collider that her mother brought her the script, which made
her think seriously about stepping out of her comfort zone.
That same month, she told Reuters,
"I want to challenge myself and (my choices) may not be appropriate for a young audience.
I'm choosing movies that I feel are artistically fun and creative."
Though Austin seemed angry that Gomez wanted to shed her Disney roots, he did ultimately
support her when she got a kidney transplant in 2017.
Perhaps it was all just a small sibling spat.
Rowan Blanchard is not your average Disney star.
The Girl Meets World actress has been outspoken about women's rights, even talking to New
York Magazine about intersectional feminism years before she could legally vote.
She wasn't afraid of the heavy hand of Disney, either.
Instead of staying quiet, she opened up about her queer identity to Wonderland Magazine.
Considering her activism, it shouldn't be surprising that she reportedly took issue
with her Girl Meets World co-star Uriah Shelton.
In an interview with M Magazine, Shelton admitted that he's friends with most of the cast, but
as for Rowan, he noted that she doesn't necessarily like him and that they have a lot of differences.
"Differences" are a nice way to put it.
Shelton has a history of liking anti-feminist posts online, and it's pretty hard to find
someone who's more feminist than Blanchard.
It's also worth noting that Shelton was given a restraining order in 2017 after allegedly
kicking a woman in the stomach.
Despite their differences, Shelton told M Magazine that he doesn't have anything against
Blanchard, though she's probably too busy slaying fashion Instagram to care.
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