Selena Gomez’s “Wizards Of Waverly Place” character was meant to be bisexual.
The 30-year-old actress played Alex Russo on the Disney show between 2007 and 2012, and Peter Murrieta – the show’s producer – has now revealed that the character was initially supposed to have been bisexual.
Murrieta told the “Wizards Of Waverly Pod” podcast: “I wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us, which was the relationship between Stevie and Alex.”
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The producer said the Disney Channel wasn’t ready for a same-sex couple at the time.
He said: “We weren’t able to in that time – but it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was.”
Murrieta has conceded that the Disney Channel has made progress on LGBTQ issues over recent years.
He said: “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 … Pretty close. It was pretty much there. That would have been great.”
Gomez has revealed that she felt under “immense” pressure as a child star.
She shot to fame as a child, starring on “Barney and Friends” in the early 2000s, and Gomez admitted that she initially struggled to cope with the pressure that came her way.
She told “Women’s Wear Daily”: “There was this immense amount of pressure I had growing up that I felt like I needed to be a good role model.
“And then I felt like maybe that was just unrealistic, and my life became very public really quickly, and I didn’t know that I was going through my own journey with mental health at the time.”