Child Actors That Put Disney On Blast

The Disney Channel has given us some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and several of these stars have thanked the corporation for jump-starting their careers. Actor Debby Ryan, who shot to fame on "The Suite Life on Deck" and "Jessie," once shared that Disney taught her several lessons about the acting world that she still uses to this day. "They have such a system in place to where it's really difficult to fail, but it's not going to be done for you," Ryan told Ladygunn, adding, "In my relationship with Disney, the more that I learned, the more they encouraged me." 

Christy Carlson Romano is one actor most millennials will remember for her role as Ren Stevens in the 2000 sitcom "Even Stevens." She also praised the network and said in a YouTube video that she has had "an overwhelmingly positive experience working for Disney Channel" and would even like to return to the network one day.

While these two stars left Disney with nothing but good things to say about their experiences, that can't be said for the actors and musicians below whose career starts on the network were not as pleasant as fans might have imagined. Most of us assume that working for Disney would be a fun experience, but it turned out to be the total opposite for these stars, and they weren't afraid to put Disney on blast.  

Miley Cyrus may have found fame and fortune as Hannah Montana on her Disney Channel show, but she also had a tough time with the network's beauty standards, which caused her to struggle with her body image.

Cyrus opened up to Marie Claire in 2015 and revealed that Disney put a lot of pressure on her when she was a teenager. "I was told for so long what a girl's supposed to be from being on that show. I was made to look like someone I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then I wasn't on that show, it was like, 'Who the f*** am I?'"

Like her fellow Disney alum, Demi Lovato, Cyrus also felt "overworked," explaining that she endured grueling "12-hour days" on the set of "Hannah Montana" and would get "coffee jammed down my throat to wake me up." In 2016, the songstress even admitted to Elle that she was underpaid, stating, "I mean, at one point — they'll probably kill me for saying it — I was probably the least paid person on my cast because I didn't know any better. I was just like, 'I can be on Disney! Yeah, I want to do it!'" And in 2014, Cyrus shared to Elle that while she was "thankful" for the network, she received "the most intense training" and was happy to be "free" of Disney. 

Bella Thorne found fame after starring as CeCe Jones in the Disney series "Shake It Up." She later revealed that there was immense pressure on her to be someone she wasn't and urged her fans to be true to themselves and not some picture-perfect teen on a Disney sitcom. 

"There are definitely a lot of pressures in the Disney eye to be perfect and I think that's where Disney in a sense goes wrong because they make their kids seem perfect," Thorne shared to Fox News, adding, "That image is very difficult." She revealed that she's "never been" anything like her character and doesn't like to conform to the norm. "Little kids growing up don't need to see perfect people. Kids need to see real," she said. "They need to see diversity, they need to see intriguing."

The actor revealed to J-14 in 2017 that she and Zendaya, who also starred on "Shake It Up," had a difficult relationship when they began working together because of how the network treated them. "Zendaya and I were put in a very unfortunate position where we were kind of forced to compete against each other, which made the whole first season of the show just very awkward for us," she recalled. Despite these challenges, Thorne and Zendaya ended up bonding with one another, with the Thorne stating, "We kind of just had this tell-all talk where we started crying and really just put everything out there on the table, and that's when we became best friends."

Selena Gomez has been under the spotlight ever since she landed the role of Alex Russo on Disney's hit series "Wizards of Waverly Place." The show went on for four seasons, and when it concluded in 2012, Gomez was transitioning into starring in more mature projects like the movie "Spring Breakers." In 2015, she also released her most personal album yet, "Revival." However, Gomez admitted that it was difficult being her true self because she was expected to be just like the "perfect" character she portrayed on The Disney Channel. 

During an interview with The New York Times in 2015, she shared that there was an "expectation of being the good girl" but "knew deep down that this wasn't what I wanted to do ... I had to have moments where I was crying and I was like, 'Why am I not in love with what I do?' I was forced to get very uncomfortable for a while in order to make the decisions I made.'"

In 2021, Gomez further opened up about her Disney past to Vogue and stated, "I still live with this haunting feeling that people still view me as this Disney girl." The songstress shared that having a lead role on Disney made her feel like she had to live up to an unrealistic standard. She said, "That was my job in a way — to be perfect. You're considered a figure kids look up to, and they take that seriously there." 

Dylan Sprouse and his twin brother, Cole Sprouse, starred on the popular Disney sitcom "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and its spinoff "The Suite Life on Deck," but Dylan would later admit that the brothers stopped working for Disney after the network refused to work with them creatively.

Speaking with Vulture, Dylan shared, "I mean, we had a really awesome idea for where the show needed to go. We were 18. If that wasn't old enough to know exactly what the show needs, then ... well, I would beg to disagree. I don't think [Disney] were willing to work with us, really ever. So we stopped the show." However, Sprouse added that he has no bad feelings against Disney since he did "benefit" from the spotlight it gave him, and the money he made allowed him to open up his brewery in Brooklyn.

Since leaving the network, Dylan has starred in indie dramas and short films like "Daddy," but when asked by The Daily Beast if these "passion projects" were created because he was a part of the "Disney machine" for so long, he replied, "I wouldn't say that it's Disney exclusively. I think this has everything to do with the industry as a whole, and what it demands, and how the industry is turning particularly young kids into money-making machines." He also added that he felt "discontent with work" he had to do as a child star that was a "necessity" to make a living and take care of his family but was "thankful" for the opportunities he was given.

During a speech at Oxford University, Nick Jonas had a lot to say about his time at Disney, including his movie "Camp Rock," which also starred his brothers Joe and Kevin Jonas. The actor discussed his Disney role and seemingly felt embarrassed about starring in the film, even cringing at the thought of it. According to Now Daily, Nick also clapped back at Disney, stating, "Disney doesn't create role models, it creates characters." While many fans admired him because of this image, he admitted that he "had his faults."

It appeared that Nick wasn't done blasting The Disney Channel when he took to TikTok in 2021 and shared a video where he stated, "Tell me you were on Disney Channel without telling me you were on Disney Channel." However, the singer could not answer, and said, "See, that's the thing. Our show got canceled after just two seasons, and we didn't have any famous quotes." According to E!, in the Jonas Brothers documentary "Chasing Happiness," Nick admitted that doing the second season of "Jonas" was actually "a big regret" of the group. "We shouldn't have done that. It really stunted our growth," he said. "I feel like it was just a bad move. It was just not the time. Literally, we couldn't evolve because of it." 

While Nick claimed that the show didn't do much for their careers, the Jonas Brothers survived until 2013, and they reconciled in 2019, stepping away from Disney and recording "Happiness Begins" with Republic Records. 

Cole and Dylan Sprouse have been acting since they were in diapers, but their big break came when they got the chance to work together on Disney's "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and its spinoff "The Suite Life on Deck." The brothers were an instant hit, with Variety calling them the "Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of their generation." 

After their spinoff concluded, both brothers attended New York University, with Cole telling Entertainment Weekly that the time off from acting was exactly what he needed after working for Disney for so many years. "There was a feeling of machination; I felt like an automaton," Cole stated about his time on the network, adding, "I needed to take a break and step outside myself ... I needed a dose of reality and I needed to see myself in a more objective point of view. And now I think I can enjoy [acting], which is a really fundamental part about being an actor."

However, Cole did express that he was grateful for the opportunities Disney provided for him. "I'm not saying that we didn't enjoy that time, but it was work. It's a career and a business, and it got me to college, which is one of the most fantastic gifts I could've been given. But I'm glad to be [acting] on my own accord now." And as far as the possibility of a "Suite Life" reboot is concerned, he said it's "absolutely not" happening during an appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show" (via Entertainment Tonight).