Rules Disney Channel Stars Were Forced To Follow

Disney Channel is not only one of the most significant networks for children's content, producing shows that remain popular for generations, it's also where many top-tier actors and performers get their start. Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Jenna Ortega, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and plenty of other big-name stars were once lead characters on popular Disney shows. Even A-listers like Britney Spears and Ryan Gosling got their start on "The Mickey Mouse Club."

It's long been rumored that there were certain rules Disney Channel stars had to follow. These range from how they were taught to present themselves in public to how their actions and appearance were required to represent the company 24/7. Former actors have opened up about the different things Disney had them do over the years, from changing song lyrics to going through media training to prepare them for any situation. Here are the rules the stars of Disney Channel were forced to follow.

Disney Channel has its actors go through media training, dubbed by Jenna Ortega as "Disney 101," to help them build a platform they can use not only to promote themselves as performers but also their projects with Disney. While speaking with fellow former child actor Elle Fanning in a Variety Actors on Actors interview in 2023, Ortega, first known for her role as Harley in Disney Channel's "Stuck in the Middle," discusses how intensive this training was. "When I did television shows when I was younger, they would take us to media training, or they would call it Disney 101 or something like that," she said. "They would give you a notebook and pens and pencils and paper, and they would say, 'Okay, you're going to post three times a day. This is how you get the most engagement.'" Having a following is considered important in the industry today, and both Ortega and Fanning say that they've lost roles due to their follower counts.

Joe Jonas, who became famous for starring in the "Camp Rock" movies and Disney Channel show "Jonas" with his brothers, shared how the studio prepared them for interviews as part of that media training, even down to what kind of question each brother would answer. "They'd teach you how to change the subject, whenever you were asked an uncomfortable question, by saying something like, 'Oh, that reminds me of my dog! I have a great story about my dog!'" he told Vulture in 2013. The trio also had a "strategy" in place that determined which brother would respond to different types of questions. "If it was a serious question, Nick would answer it," Jonas recalled. "If it was lighthearted, Kevin would. Nick and I took questions related to our music and explaining what certain songs meant."

In addition to going through media and social media training, the young stars are expected to develop a personal brand. This often highlights what the actor wants to be known for, whether that's posting skateboarding videos, filming vlogs about their days on set, or even their love of cooking. This can help them build the platform they learn about in Disney 101.

In an interview with GQ in 2021, then-18 -year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo, who started with Disney on "Bizaardvark," shared how "not fun" it was to be asked to decide on a personal brand while she was still a young teenager. "Most 14-year-olds aren't in a room with adults being like, 'So, what's your brand?'" she told People earlier that year, saying she had "an identity crisis on steroids." She confirmed to GQ that she had "no idea" how she had been expected to create an image or brand for herself at such a young age.

Her thoughts were echoed by Raven-Symoné, star of "The Cheetah Girls" movies and "That's So Raven." In a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly, she recalled, "I was branded at such a young age and then you wonder why all of these stars have these issues." She went on to discuss how she had to be good at compartmentalizing the different parts of herself to be the person she needed to be on red carpets while still focusing on school and her job. Bella Thorne, one of the leads of "Shake It Up," also weighed in on the topic, sharing on The Tom Ward Show that her Disney Channel handlers told her "to be a very different person" than who she really is as part of developing her brand.

As potential role models for the children and tweens who watch its shows, Disney Channel actors have to maintain a clean and family-friendly image. For Ashley Tisdale, one of the stars of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," the "High School Musical" films, and "Phineas & Ferb," this meant censoring the lyrics of the original music she performed on the "High School Musical" tour. Tisdale was signed with Warner Bros. Records, not Hollywood Records, like many Disney Channel actors. This meant Disney didn't initially have control over her music. However, in a TikTok, the actress confirmed the company had her change a lyric from "kissing" to "dancing" when she performed a song on the tour.

Joe Jonas shared this sentiment in his interview with Vulture. "If a lyric was slightly sexual, someone at the record company would tell us we had to change it. It could be the most innocent reference, like 'I'm alone in a room with you,' and it would have to go," he said. "It felt like we couldn't be creative, so we stopped listening to them and just started handing s*** in."

Bella Thorne has opened up in a number of interviews about how Disney Channel executives reacted when she was photographed in a bikini at the beach at 14 years old. "They said, 'You're lucky that Bella has such a fan base that we can't afford to fire her at this moment in time, but if she does one more other thing, we will,'" she discussed on The Tom Ward Show, implying that they would have fired her over the photograph if it weren't for her popularity with the network's audience.

As part of maintaining that clean image, Disney Channel actors are expected to keep certain things they may be experiencing to themselves. While the network used Bella Thorne's experience with dyslexia as a part of its "The Time I" series of commercials, that wasn't the case for everyone on the channel.

Demi Lovato, star of the "Camp Rock" movies and "So Random," went to an inpatient treatment facility after something happened on the Jonas Brothers: Live in Concert tour in 2010. She later confirmed that she had a physical altercation with a backup dancer. She also shared that she went to treatment for disordered eating and substance use. "I came out of the experience with the choice of talking about my struggles or my journey with the possibility of helping people, or keeping my mouth shut and going back to Disney Channel," Lovato told Bustle in 2020 as she opened up about her life after treatment. "And I was like that doesn't feel authentic to me. So I chose to tell my story."

In 2018, Rowan Blanchard, one of the stars of "Girl Meets World," opened up in an interview with W Magazine about what is implied to be her time on the Disney Channel, though she didn't explicitly name the network. "I worked for a corporation for four years that is known for silencing and crafting your voice," she said, "so with that I just had to very much stand my ground and separate myself, which I think I did." That same year, Blanchard revealed that she once spoke up about an inappropriate interaction between an adult and a minor that she witnessed on set — only for everyone to cold-shoulder her the next day for speaking out.

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As part of their contractual obligations, actors were expected to maintain certain appearances, whether it was so they always looked like the character they played or so they looked as young as possible. For Miley Cyrus, star of one of Disney Channel's best shows of all time, "Hannah Montana," that meant keeping her hair long and blonde. "From the time I was 11, it was, 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing,'" she told Marie Claire in 2015. "I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show." This involved wearing wigs, makeup, and even "flippers," aka the fake teeth that are often used in the pageant community to fill in gaps or spaces to create a more "perfect" smile.

In Joe Jonas' case, this meant being required to shave any and all facial hair so he continued to look like a high school student for "Jonas." "I had to shave every day because they wanted me to pretend like I was 16 when I was 20," he told Vulture. When the series ended, he grew out a beard and his hair, wearing it longer than he ever had before because Disney wasn't dictating its length, taking back that control.

As part of maintaining the Disney-approved brand along with their own clean images, the channel's actors have to apologize for anything that might be deemed controversial. When Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" fame was part of a group of stars whose files were hacked in 2007, it resulted in nude photographs of her being leaked online. She was blamed, rather than the hacker, and Disney expected her to apologize for taking the photos. "It was a really traumatising thing for me," Hudgens told Cosmopolitan in 2020. 

Joe Jonas also spoke about the situation with Vulture, sharing what he and his brothers knew as members of the same bubble. "We heard that she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying to figure out how to keep her on lockdown," he said. "We'd hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn't ever mess up."

The following year, Miley Cyrus found herself in a similar situation after a Vanity Fair cover featured the star, then 15 years old, in a photo where she was covered by just a sheet. Disney had Cyrus release a statement about being "embarrassed" about the photos. "I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about," Cyrus said at the time. A decade later, the singer would rescind the apology on X (formerly Twitter), captioning a photo of her apology on the front page of the New York Post with "IM NOT SORRY."

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Disney Channel stars have to maintain packed schedules in order to complete everything the network sets up for them. Many of its most popular actors, like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato, also had music careers through Disney, meaning the corporation could schedule their music engagements around their acting obligations, creating overwhelmingly full schedules for the young performers.

In 2023, Cyrus released a series of TikToks about her life. In part 12, she looked back at one of her schedules while she was filming "Hannah Montana." On the day in question, she was up by 5:30 a.m. to get ready before spending over 12 hours in nine interviews, two photo shoots, and an editor's meeting. At the time, she would've been 12 or 13 years old, the singer said in the video. This was all squeezed into a weekend before flying back to shoot "Hannah Montana" on Monday.

Gomez had a similar schedule during her time with Disney Channel while filming "Wizards of Waverly Place." On the "Wizards of Waverly Pod" podcast, her TV father, David DeLuise, said he remembered how they would shoot the series during the week, on a Tuesday through Friday schedule. On Friday nights, the young star would hop on a plane to fly across the country and perform in concerts at various places before returning to film the following week's schedule. He recalled Gomez saying, "Why did I want to do singing, too?" She and Jennifer Stone, who portrayed Gomez's on-screen BFF Harper, weighed in as well, joking about all the naps she took in the school room during the week to recover from her long weekends.