With the Mean Girls musical film premiering this month, it’s worth noting that many of the male leads from the original 2004 cast are now living out, proud, and gay lives 20 years on.
Jonathan Bennett who played Aaron Samuels knew he was gay when he was filming Mean Girls, but he didn’t come out at the time.
He said, “I never really talked about it when Mean Girls came out, my friends all knew. I just was kind of told by not anyone specifically, but everyone [to stay closeted]. We lived in a weird world where us actors who were working in the public eye at the time that were gay, we all didn’t know what to do.”
While he still prefers to keep his life fairly private, he publicly came out in 2018 and married his husband in 2022. He now hosts a show on the Food Network.
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Next up, Rajiv Surendra who played everyone’s favourite mathlete, Kevin G also knew he was gay when filming Mean Girls, but chose to keep his sexuality private.
He told Kajal Mag, “I know full well that if I was an openly gay actor, there was no way I’d be considered for the role of a 16-year-old religious Indian kid in a movie that Fox was putting $100 million into.”
Sexuality was a taboo subject when he was growing up, but after filming Mean Girls, Raviv moved to Germany where he was able to fully be himself. He said, “I had complete anonymity there, which I think helped me come to terms with doing what I wanted. I didn’t need to be worried about what everyone else thought.”
Today, Rajiv is a style icon who collects antiques and makes DIY videos on YouTube.
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Finally, Daniel Franzese, who played Damian, came out in 2014 around the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls. It was after receiving fan mail thanking him for playing Damian.
He told AOL the letter said: “When I was in 8th grade, I was beat up for being chubby and tortured for being a sissy, but then your movie came out and, in 9th grade, on the first day of school, the popular senior girls walked up to me and said, ‘You’re like Damian, come sit with us!'”
The fan said he didn’t know if Daniel was gay or just played a gay character, which prompted him to come out publicly alongside his costars.
Now he’s a stand-up comedian who has his own Mean Girls-themed merchandise line.
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Looking ahead, the Mean Girls trailer promises to build on these queer storylines.
The new film offers a lot of LGBTQ+ talent and roles including Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, Reneé Rapp as Regina George, Jaquel Spivey as Damian, Bebe Wood as Gretchen Wieners, and Auliʻi Cravalho as Janis, who gets to perform the unforgettable sapphic bop ‘Not My Fault’.
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