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Wizards of Waverly Place star Jennifer Stone has said it was Selena Gomez’s and Miley Cyrus’s shared dating history that prevented them from appearing in scenes together during the special 2009 Disney crossover episode.
Titled “Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana,” the three-part event brought the casts of the channel’s top three sitcoms – Wizards of Waverly Place, The Suite Life on Deck and Hannah Montana – together.
While Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Cyrus (Hannah Montana) both appeared in the episode, they only did so in separate scenes.
On Monday’s (July 29) episode of her Wizards of Waverly Pod podcast, Stone, who starred as Harper Finkle, Alex Russo’s (Gomez) best friend, explained the behind-the-scenes drama that kept the leads apart.
When asked by her podcast co-host David DeLuise, who played Alex’s father, Jerry Russo, if Cyrus and Gomez didn’t get along during the shoot, Stone responded: “They intermittently got along.
“I mean, come on. It was, like, high school. Like, they both dated Nick [Jonas]…” she recalled. “I think Miley dated him first and then Selena dated him, and then it was just messy high school nonsense.”
Stone assured De Luise that the two former Disney stars are “all good now,” adding: “But, yeah, it was high school just BS.”
The Independent has contacted Gomez’s and Cyrus’s representatives for comment.
Cyrus was only 13 when she was cast to lead Hannah Montana from 2006 to 2011. She dated Jonas between 2006 and 2007.
Gomez, too, was 13 when she rose to fame as the lead of Wizards of Waverly Place from 2007 to 2012. She later began her on-and-off relationship with Jonas in 2008 before they officially ended it in 2010.
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Gomez, now 32, previously addressed her and Cyrus’s long-rumored feud in a 2016 interview with W magazine, saying: “We never feuded. We both liked the same guy when we were 16.”
Two years later, in 2018, Cyrus fiercely defended Gomez after Dolce & Gabbana designer Stefano Gabbana appeared to call the Wizards of Waverly alum ugly on Instagram.
The pair have since moved on, and Gomez is currently in a relationship with record producer and songwriter Benny Blanco.
Meanwhile, Cyrus, now 31, has been romantically linked to drummer Maxx Morando since 2021. They appeared to confirm their relationship in 2022 when they were seen kissing while out in West Hollywood. In March 2023, they made another rare public appearance together at the Versace show in Los Angeles, California.
Earlier this year, a Wizards of Waverly Place reboot was greenlit, with Gomez set to reprise her role in the pilot.
The original series centered on teenage wizards living on the titular street in New York’s Greenwich Village.
The new show will reportedly pick up its story after a mysterious incident at WizTech, where an adult Justin Russo (David Henrie) has neglected his wizard powers in favor of pursuing a normal, human life with his wife and two sons.
However, he is drawn back into the world of magic when a powerful young wizard turns up at his door in search of training, and Justin realizes he must embrace his past to secure the future of the Wizard World.
