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Let Lizzie McGuire Do Sex

Photo: Sarah Morris/Getty Images

For weeks — nay, months — the world has watched in bewilderment as the Lizzie McGuire reboot fell apart. In January, the show’s original creator exited the production, citing creative differences with Disney+, the streaming service developing the revival. According to Hilary Duff, a.k.a. Lizzie McGuire herself, the mounting confusion stemmed from Disney’s backtracking on a plot that included “adult themes” incompatible with the company’s “family friendly” programming. One of Duff’s Instagrams led to speculation that Disney paused the reboot over gay themes in its story line, but no! As it turns out, the problem was a reference to the fact that people have sex. Real racy stuff, you see.

The Hollywood Reporter read the script for the reboot’s first episode (episodes one and two have already been filmed), and reports that it “acknowledges the existence of sex, with cheating as a central plot point.” Now the pieces begin to fall into place: We know that the reboot finds Lizzie as an engaged 30-something living in Brooklyn, and that she must move back to California after “she gets some pretty big news at the end of the first episode,” per Duff. The news, one could reasonably conclude, is that someone cheated. Our bets are on the chef fiancé, but who knows for sure?

Anyway, in a recent Instagram post, Duff explained that she “was incredibly excited to launch Lizzie on D+,” and felt obligated to stay true to her character. She’d “be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30-year-old’s journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating,” she continued, asking point-blank for Disney+ to let the show move to Hulu.

It would stand to reason that many, many 30-year-olds with life partners in New York City are having sex. So: Give the people what they want. Give them a realistic interpretation of grown-up Lizzie McGuire, i.e., an adult woman whose cartoon interior monologue loves to barge into the bedroom and ruin the moment.

Let Lizzie McGuire Do Sex