A former executive producer of the formerly popular children’s show Wizards of Waverly Place on Disney Channel said that he wanted to make Selena Gomez’s character openly bisexual.
In a recent appearance on Wizards of Waverly Pod, hosted by former actors on the show Jennifer Stone (“Harper Finkle”) and David DeLuise (“Jerry Russo”), former executive producer and head writer on the show, Peter Murrieta, said “I wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us was the relationship between Stevie and Alex.”
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Both Stevie and Alex were teenage girl characters on the show. Gomez portrayed main character Alex Russo, while guest star Hayley Kiyoko played Stevie.
According to Murrieta, this was easily the storyline he wishes he could have explored more. “But we weren’t able to in that time…it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was. And that would’ve been fun,” he said.
Stone agreed with the former executive producer that it would have been fun to explore the teenage character’s bisexuality.
“If we were just a few years down the line, we maybe could have played with that,” responded Stone.
“Now a days that could happen, right?” asked DeLuise.
“Disney did it! They have had [LGBT characters],” Murrieta said of Disney Channel currently.
“At the time it wasn’t a thing,” he lamented. “But, we got as close as we could. I mean it was pretty close. It was pretty much right there.”
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Representatives for the Disney Channel did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Wizards of Waverly Place ran on the popular children’s channel from 2007-2012.
