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10 Disney Channel Stars You Didn’t Know Dated

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Disney Channel’s golden era wasn’t just cranking out chart-topping soundtracks — it was quietly running its own dating pool behind the scenes.

TheThings Celebrity’s rundown, “10 Disney Channel Stars You Didn’t Know Dated,” pulls together the off-camera romances that connected the network’s biggest names throughout the 2000s and into the mid-2010s. Some of these pairings started as co-stars who fell for each other on set; others were teen idols crossing paths at award shows and press junkets. Nearly all of them ended amicably, which is more than you can say for most Hollywood breakups.

• Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas met filming “Camp Rock” in 2008 and became a couple during the 2010 production of “Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam” before splitting within a few months to protect their friendship.
• Nick Jonas dated “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus from 2006 to 2007, then “Wizards of Waverly Place” lead Selena Gomez from 2008 to 2010.
• Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, who met on the set of “High School Musical” in 2005, stayed together off-screen until late 2010.

Camp Rock’s Off-Screen Spark

Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas were friends first, both cast in Disney’s 2008 TV movie “Camp Rock.” The chemistry didn’t turn romantic on camera right away — it took the sequel. During production of “Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam” in 2010, the two went public as a couple, only to call it off within months. Both have said the split was mutual and deliberate, a move to keep the friendship intact rather than let a breakup wreck it. That friendship held: they later toured together as part of Joe’s band, DNCE, years after the romance had ended.

They dated during “Camp Rock 2,” split within months, and still ended up on the same tour bus years later.

The Jonas Brothers’ Crossover Effect

No family did more cross-pollinating across the Disney Channel roster than the Jonas brothers, and Nick Jonas alone linked two of the network’s flagship shows. He dated Miley Cyrus, then the star of “Hannah Montana,” from 2006 to 2007, before moving into a relationship with Selena Gomez of “Wizards of Waverly Place” that ran from 2008 to 2010. Long before Kevin Jonas settled down and later became a subject of profiles like The Untold Truth Of Danielle Jonas, his younger brothers were already the connective tissue between Disney’s biggest teen franchises.

High School Musical’s Real Couple

Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens met during the 2005 filming of “High School Musical” and turned the on-screen Troy-and-Gabriella romance into an actual relationship that lasted more than five years, ending in late 2010. It’s the pairing most casual fans already knew about, but it set the template for how normal it became for Disney co-stars to date for years rather than just a few months of press-tour chemistry.

Later Network Pairings

The Disney dating web extended well past the mid-2000s crop. “Shake It Up” star Bella Thorne dated “Wizards of Waverly Place” actor Gregg Sulkin before the two announced an amicable split in August 2016, both citing demanding work schedules. “Good Luck Charlie” co-stars Bridgit Mendler and Shane Harper were a couple off-screen as well as on it, and “Girl Meets World” actress Sabrina Carpenter dated “Good Luck Charlie” star Bradley Steven Perry. Even further back, Miley Cyrus and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” actor Dylan Sprouse had a childhood romance before either of them was old enough to drive. Plenty of these stars went on to build music careers that outlasted their Disney contracts, the kind of pivot covered in pieces like Musicians That Are Nothing Like They Seem.

What ties all ten pairings together is how few of them ended in public wreckage — Thorne and Sulkin’s 2016 statement about “demanding schedules” is about as messy as any of these got. For a network built on squeaky-clean teen stardom, that’s a pretty consistent track record.