Jennifer Stone Says Selena Gomez Declined a ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ Spinoff
What would a spinoff featuring Wizards of Waverly Place besties Alex Russo and Harper Finkle have looked like? According to Jennifer Stone, who played Harper in the popular Disney Channel series, it almost happened.
In a new episode of Wizards of Waverly Pod, Stone told co-host David DeLuise that the idea was potentially pitched to Selena Gomez, who played Alex. “I don’t know how true this is, but I was told that it was pitched to Selena to do a Harper-Alex spinoff, and she said no because she had a lot of other things going on,” Stone explained.
When DeLuise (who played Jerry Russo in the series) asked when the idea was pitched, Stone said it was after Wizards of Waverly Place wrapped in 2012. “I get it, she had a million other things going on and she wanted to move forward,” the actress continued. “Honestly, at the time, I wanted to move forward too. Looking back, it would have been great, but the thing is, where we both were at the time — like, we just wanted to explore other things.”
Earlier this year, Gomez herself joined the podcast as a guest, where she reminisced on the good times with her former co-stars. “I can’t begin to tell you guys without making it such a little cry session, I felt like I was the happiest I’d been in my whole life,” she said of her years as Alex. “And I don’t want that to be a sad thought because I’m really grateful and happy. But it was definitely the happiest times for me, and I recognize that obviously I have this different attention on me that I just didn’t have then and that was a really pure time.”
Watch Stone and DeLuise discuss the spinoff that never happened via TikTok below.
Rania Aniftos
Billboard
