Keri Russell has claimed Disney let go of female stars on the 'All-New Mickey Mouse Club' when they "looked sexually active".
Keri Russell was a Mouseketeer
The 'Diplomat' actress - who was a Mouseketeer between 1991 to 1994, until she was 17 - has hit out at the double standards that the guys and girls appearing on the children's programme faced when it came to being axed from the show.
Speaking to Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his 'Dinner's on Me' podcast, Keri said when asked if there was a cut-off age for young actors to be let go on the show: "It's usually like girls who look like they were sexually active. Which, probably, I was one of the first.
"They're like, 'She's out! She is out! That one is gone.'
"The boys stayed 'til they were, like, 19. I was like, 'By the way, I've had sex with that person so I know that they've had sex.' "
She then jokingly added: "Pregnant Mouseketeers aren't on the roster!"
While Keri didn't name who she was referring to, she previously dated fellow Mouseketeer Tony Lucca in the 1990s and he, along with NSYNC's J.C. Chasez both stayed on the show until they were 19 in 1995.
The 48-year-old actress finds it "weird" she was part of the show but hopes she avoided the "creepiest part of kid acting" because she and her co-stars were all of similar ages.
She said: "It is weird that I was on that.
"I think what's really the creepiest part of kid acting is usually it's one or two kids with all adults, and so that really accelerates the adult-ification of everything.
"For 'The Mickey Mouse Club', there were 19 of us. The adults were invisible to me.
"I think that's what was unique. ... I wasn't completely alone with all the adults and I think that was helpful."
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