Lizzie and Miranda’s friendship was a giant a part of what made Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire a success with younger followers within the early 2000s. However in line with a brand new ebook, behind-the-scenes tensions between stars Hilary Duff and Lalaine finally led to the latter abruptly leaving the present.
In Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire, creator Ashley Spencer writes that the 2 younger actors grew to become shut in actual life early within the present’s two-season run. Their characters’ shut bond had Duff and Lalaine filming collectively continuously, whereas off-screen “they lived close to one another and shared milestones like shaving their legs collectively for the primary time,” Spencer writes.
“The 2 women had been actually greatest buddies for three-quarters of the sequence, perhaps extra,” Lizzie McGuire showrunner Stan Rogow explains within the ebook. “After which that they had a blow up that by no means bought healed.”
Insiders advised Spencer that tensions surfaced as early as season 1, when Lalaine bought to indicate off her vocal prowess, singing “Reflection” from Disney’s Mulan in an episode.
“Hilary and her mother had been very upset by that as a result of their long-term plan was for Hilary to sing,” Tim Maile, who co-wrote the episode, says in Disney Excessive. “And, within the total scheme of Lizzie, Lalaine was the one who bought to sing first.”
In line with Spencer, Duff, whose busy schedule didn’t permit her to spend as a lot time with the remainder of the present’s forged and crew, was additionally insecure about Lalaine’s obvious bond with everybody else on set.
“There have been a variety of emotional politics that had been simply unlucky,” Rogow says. “It was a multitude.”
Throughout the present’s ultimate stretch of filming in 2002, Duff and Lalaine had what Spencer describes within the ebook as “a falling-out past restore.”
Rogow remembers that the actors’ friendship “fractured all the way in which as much as the dad and mom.”
“There have been two camps: ‘We don’t need to work together with her,’ and ‘We don’t need to work with her,’ ” he explains within the ebook. “It was like, oh my God, this can be a nightmare. We couldn’t remedy it.”
Spencer writes that the rift between Duff and Lalaine — which she chalks as much as “typical teen-girl drama” in addition to a stew of profession and administration points — induced manufacturing of the present’s second season to halt. With simply six episodes left to movie, community execs determined to launch Lalaine from her contract.
“We may by no means and would by no means drive somebody to do [a show they didn’t want to do],” former Disney Channel president of leisure Wealthy Ross tells Spencer. “For Lalaine, she was able to go.”
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Whereas Lalaine was absent from the ultimate six episodes filmed, as a result of they aired out of sequence, she did seem in a number of late season 2 episodes, together with the ultimate Lizzie McGuire episode to air on Disney Channel in February 2004. The present’s producers additionally meant to carry her again for season 2’s Christmas episode, which aired in December 2002, however filmed after Lalaine had left the present.
However, as Lizzie McGuire author Douge Tuber says in Disney Excessive, tensions between the 2 younger actors as soon as once more flared throughout the episode’s desk learn. “You possibly can inform there was one thing happening between the 2 of them. Lalaine was sort of strutting like, ‘I’m baaack,’ and Hilary didn’t like that,” Tuber says. “After the desk learn, Stan advised us, ‘Effectively, she’s not going to be on this one both.’ So, we wrote her out.”