Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner says queer romance stayed as subtext after Disney blocked it
Peter Marietta says he "wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us" when it came to Alex and Stevie's relationship

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Selena Gomez and Hayley Kiyoko as Alex and Stevie on Wizards of Waverly Place Photo: Eric McCandless/Disney Channel
It’s a good day to be a Disney gay. After years of speculation and stalwart shipping from fans, a romantic relationship between Wizards of Waverly Place’s Alex (Selena Gomez) and Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko) has been deemed canon. According to Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner Peter Marietta, the more rigidly ‘family values’ standards of late-aughts Disney Channel prevented the series from running with the romance.
“I wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us,” Marietta told former stars Jennifer Stone and David DeLuise on a recent episode of their rewatch podcast Wizards of Waverly Pod. “We weren’t able to in that time, but it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was.”