Whatever Happened To These 2000s Teen Crushes?

The following article includes brief references to domestic abuse, mental health issues, and suicide.

How can the teens of the aughts forget their celeb crushes from the halcyon days after the world made it through Y2K unscathed? Those growing up in the 2000s might fondly recall the satisfying snap of a flip phone, giggling over the "Buffy" and "Harry Potter" entries on FanFiction.net, and believing that Ask Jeeves (the O.G. ChatGPT) had all the answers. You didn't have to be a cheerleader to rock a pleated micro-mini, and if your frosted tips failed to make you look like a boy band star, you could just throw on a trucker hat. And when it came to celebrity photos to plaster on your wall, there were so many options.

For many of the aughts' younger pop culture consumers, early crushes came from the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. It was a dark day for a lot of "High School Musical" fans when they learned that Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were dating IRL, while for others, the co-stars' split in 2010 marked the sad end of an era. Older teens, meanwhile, had more sophisticated fare to watch, including the soaps "One Tree Hill" and "The O.C." Or perhaps they found their famous crushes in teen films such as "Bring It On," "Mean Girls," and "EuroTrip."

While much of the tech and trends of the 2000s might be obsolete now, the stars that were popping up consistently in LiveJournal entries are still out there — and we're about to hit you with some cotton candy body spray-scented nostalgia.

In "Save the Last Dance," Sean Patrick Thomas romanced Julia Stiles and made viewers swoon with his smooth moves. The 2001 movie also helped change many viewers' attitudes toward interracial relationships, and Thomas would later learn that he's partially responsible for the existence of a number of children. "A lot of brothers or white women say, 'You know, I saw "Save the Last Dance" [and] I felt like I was ready to have an interracial relationship,'" Thomas told the New York Post. "'And now, look, I have like four mixed kids.'"

Thomas went on to star in the "Barbershop" franchise, and he reunited with his "Cruel Intentions" co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, when he landed a role in her CW series "Ringer" in 2012. A decade later, he found himself working with another former castmate: Kerry Washington. Her career was in its infancy when she played the sister of Thomas' character in "Save the Last Dance." But by the time Thomas got cast in the Hulu legal drama "Reasonable Doubt," Washington was sitting in the executive producer's chair. "What attracted me to the role, obviously right off the bat, was the chance to work with Kerry again," Thomas told People.

Thomas' role as a billionaire in need of legal counsel came as he was experiencing a bit of a career renaissance. In 2022, he also starred in the biopic "Till" and appeared in the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind."

Disney and Nickelodeon stars dominated the 2000s teen scene, so Taylor Momsen was an anomaly of the era with her platform heels, fishnets, and generously applied black eyeshadow. Momsen also had real rock cred, thanks to her ability to shred and her frontwoman status within the band The Pretty Reckless. But before the group released its debut album in 2010, Momsen explored a world that had little in common with the rock scene: Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Momsen played the ambitious "Gossip Girl" character Jenny Humphrey from 2007 to 2012, and as of this writing, her non-music-video acting credits end there. She decided to prioritize her music career but found herself in a dark place after suffering two devastating losses. Momsen was touring with Soundgarden when the band's frontman, Chris Cornell, died by suicide in 2017. A year later, The Pretty Reckless' producer, Kato Khandwala, died in a motorcycle crash. "I was just extraordinarily depressed," Momsen told The Telegraph. "I couldn't get off the couch." Eventually, she turned to music to help her heal and started writing some of the songs that would be featured on her band's 2021 album, "Death by Rock and Roll." She said of the record, "If I hadn't written it, I don't know if I would be here."

As for her former career, Momsen told Elle in 2022, "Acting is something I did and maybe I'll do it again. Who knows? But music will forever be a constant."

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Kiely Williams and Adrienne Bailon were two members of the girl group 3LW when Disney came a-knockin' with an opportunity for them to sing and act in the 2003 TV movie "The Cheetah Girls." The Disney Channel film was wildly successful, and along with co-star Sabrina Bryan, they started performing as the titular girl group.

Like many of the singing acts forged in the House of Mouse, The Cheetah Girls couldn't extend their shelf life indefinitely and disbanded in 2009. However, Williams and Bryan reunited to film the comedic web series "Bad Sex with Good People" in 2017, and Williams helped form yet another girl group in front of reality show cameras for the 2021 series "BET Presents: The Encore." Blaque songstress Shamari DeVoe and Cherish members Fallon and Felisha King joined her to create the R&B supergroup BluPrint.

Williams later made headlines in 2023 when she criticized Chris Brown for collaborating with Chlöe Bailey. Williams accused Brown of using Black female artists to restore his tarnished image, tweeting in part, "Let him come out with his own record — so genius, so captivating that it makes us all forget HE BEATS WOMEN. He can't so he won't." Brown didn't do himself any favors when he fired back on his Instagram Story by trying to mock Williams for having a lisp. In addition to being insulting to people with speech impediments, his attack was inaccurate, as Williams told "That Grape Juice" that she doesn't have a lisp.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

In the 2001 classic "The Princess Diaries," Erik von Detten played the guy who Genovian Princess Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) dreamed of getting a foot pop from. But instead, his character ended up getting a shoe to the head after forcibly kissing the royal. Erik still managed to remain a wall-worthy heartthrob in the eyes of many fans, but after he voiced the villainous Sid in the 2010 animated movie "Toy Story 3," his acting career came to a screeching halt.

In a 2021 interview with E! News, Erik revealed that his dream of becoming a dad made him decide that it was time to pursue a new career. "The fickle nature of employment as an actor just wasn't consistent enough for me," he explained. Luckily for him, he found what he was looking for fairly easily. "It's a sales position with a company working in finance. I've grown into a management position and it's worked out really well," Erik said. After gaining that financial stability, he and his wife, realtor Angela von Detten, welcomed a baby girl named Claire Elizabeth in 2019. The couple's son, Thomas, joined the family two years later.

While Erik no longer acts for a living, he told Romper in 2018 that it's something he does for fun. He just sticks to low-key theater performances, such as holiday plays at community theaters. Oh, and in case you're wondering, he told E! News that his wife has requested a foot pop.

Joanna "JoJo" Levesque appealed to the angstier teenage experience with her 2004 bubblegum pop earworm "Leave (Get Out)," which earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Pop chart when she was just 13 years old. Unfortunately, her experience with fame soured when her music label, Blackground Records, stopped releasing her music but wouldn't terminate her contract. Worse yet, she claimed to UPROXX (via Celeb***hy) that the head of the record company had a nutritionist put her on a 500-calorie-a-day diet.

After a prolonged legal battle, JoJo eventually extricated herself from her contract and could shift her focus back to simply making music. She released her third album "Mad Love" in 2016 after signing with Atlantic Records and re-recorded her first two albums. "I went from feeling like a disempowered child to feeling like a capable woman," she said. Her fourth album "Good to Know" followed in 2020. Also that year, she was asked to record Joe Biden's official campaign song, which was written by Diane Warren. "[She] came in and gave one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard," Warren recalled to Variety.

JoJo also began exploring other musical avenues. Performing as the Black Swan, she finished second on "The Masked Singer" in 2021. Two years later, she landed her first Broadway gig: the lead role of Satine in "Moulin Rouge! The Musical." She told People, "I really wanted to step up to a challenge, and that's what I think Broadway is — it's the best of the best."

James Maslow was a beneficiary of a 2000s trend that Disney and Nickelodeon both participated in: packaging young entertainers as pop groups and acting ensembles. From 2009 to 2013, Maslow, Kendall Schmidt, Carlos PenaVega, and Logan Henderson portrayed a boy band on the Nick series "Big Time Rush." Like many similar music ensembles, the group eventually split up, deciding to go their separate ways in 2014. 

After releasing his debut solo album "How I Like It" in 2017, Maslow continued to act, playing a bartender in a 2018 episode of "The Big Bang Theory" and getting in touch with his dark side in the Lifetime thriller "Room for Murder." It was only a matter of time before he got cast as a romantic lead — he was dubbed "the handsome one" in BTR, after all. He found the perfect fit in the 2021 rom-com "Stars Fell on Alabama." Maslow was cast as a Hollywood agent who asks an actor client to pretend to be his girlfriend when he returns to Alabama for a high school reunion. And guess who falls in love? 

Maslow recalled to "LRM Online," "I read the script, and I went, 'I don't have anything like this. I don't have any projects that I've been doing or have coming up that are just endearing and sweet.'" Trying something new paid off; the movie was popular enough to merit a 2023 sequel, "Stars Fell Again." By that time, BTR was also touring together again.

Jesse McCartney found solo success after leaving the boy band Dream Street and releasing his dreamy debut album "Beautiful Soul" in 2004. He continued churning out hits throughout the aughts while also finding time to act. He starred in the series "Summerland" and landed voice-acting roles in the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" films and "Kingdom Hearts" video game series. In 2016, he also popped up in a somewhat unexpected place; in "Fear the Walking Dead," he played a villainous pirate who gets zombified.

But by 2020, McCartney was looking for a way to remind his fans that he was still singing, and he found it in "The Masked Singer." After finishing second, he told People, "This was an opportunity for me to pick back up." His stint on the show coincided with the release of "Yours," a reflective, personal single that explored his relationship with his fiancée at the time, actor Katie Pearson. "It sort of sums up my life ... ultimately coming to the conclusion that my new favorite role is to be somebody's very special person," McCartney told Billboard.

The couple tied the knot the following year after nearly a decade together, and McCartney told Us Weekly that fans would be hearing a lot more about Pearson in "New Stage," the record he released in 2021. "She's certainly a big muse for this album and you can hear it lyrically," he said. "It's too specific not to be about a certain person."