“Wizards of Waverly Place” showrunner Peter Murrieta wishes he could have been more overt about a same-sex relationship between two characters, but suggested that Disney wouldn’t allow it at the time.
The fantasy teen sitcom aired on the Disney Channel between 2007 and 2012. It followed Alex Russo (Selena Gomez) and her brothers, who are all wizards by birth and trying to master their powers before they’re lost forever. Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko) is a minor character who befriends Alex. Fans became convinced that the pair were secretly involved romantically, which the show’s creator has now confirmed.
“I wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us,” he said during a recent interview on the podcast “Wizards of Waverly Pod.”
“We weren’t able to in that time, but it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was.”
“Disney Channel has had [LGBTQ] characters, and they did it. At that time it wasn’t a thing. But we got as close as we could… I mean, it was pretty close,” Murrieta said, adding that making their relationship a focus would have been “great.”
Kiyoko previously discussed the pairing between her character and Gomez’s. The actress, who is a lesbian, shared her feelings during a 2022 interview with Them.
“At this time, I wasn’t openly queer, and so when I was on Wizards, I think anytime I was doing a show I felt very insecure or exposing myself as a flaming lesbian,” Kiyoko said. “But obviously [for] the fans who have watched the show, Stevie is a part of their gay awakening, and I wasn’t able to mask my lesbian energy very much in the character.”
Disney has come under fire recently for inserting LGBTQ storylines into children’s programming.
For example, the new version of “Blue’s Clues” featured an LGBT pride parade with “non-binary” animals and a cartoon drag queen to celebrate Pride Month in 2021. The film “Lightyear” flopped after creators publicized their inclusion of a same-sex kiss as a way to protest Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.
Video of a leaked video call at the company showed an executive producer referencing her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda.”
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