We’re just a few years away from High School Musical‘s 20-year anniversary, but although 2006 feels like a lifetime ago, the rumors surrounding the cast and characters of Disney Channel’s most successful original movie are still running rampant. For a long time, it was believed that Ryan Evans — brother to Ashley Tisdale’s Sharpay — was gay. Besides mere speculation, we never got any true confirmation as to Ryan’s sexual orientation… until now.
Is Ryan gay in the High School Musical franchise?
In the fourth and final season of the spin-off series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, we’ll be seeing a familiar face in Lucas Grabeel’s Ryan. After years of speculation that Ryan is gay due to stereotypes surrounding his flamboyant personality, love for theater, and supposed crush on Chad, it’s finally been confirmed in the first episode of HSMTMTS‘ fourth season that Ryan is gay (or at the very least bisexual).
As The Independent reports, the movie trilogy has never explicitly stated Ryan’s sexuality, and at the end of the third film, he’s in a relationship with classmate Kelsi, so it seemed as if all the rumors were put to bed. In the trailer for HSMTMTS season four, however, Ryan was seen kissing another male, and now that the season has arrived on Disney Plus, we can confirm that Ryan not only has a life partner (who he kisses early on in the episode), but they are expecting twins.
Kenny Ortega, the creator of High School Musical, addressed Ryan’s sexuality in an interview with Variety:
“The character of Ryan in High School Musical, Sharpay’s twin brother, we decided he’s probably going to come out in college. It was less about coming out and just more about letting his true colours come forward.”
We should have suspected that Ryan was attracted to men after Grabeel reportedly confirmed Ryan’s ‘confusing’ crush on Zeke, the character who takes his sister Sharpay to prom. The High School Musical fanbase was convinced that Ryan fancied Chad, but apparently, that was never the case.
Season four will further reveal where HSMTMTS takes Ryan’s character, and there’s no denying that this is a step in the right direction for Disney and positive news for the LGBTQ+ community. As for the actor who plays Ryan on screen, Lucas Grabeel — well, that’s a different matter entirely.
Is Lucas Grabeel also gay in real life?
When an actor plays a gay character on screen, such as Lucas Grabeel as Ryan Evans, it’s easy to assume they are also gay in real life. The sad reality, however, is that gay actors in Hollywood are historically denied opportunities that their straight colleagues regularly receive, even in roles that would otherwise seem like a perfect fit.
Lucas Grabeel is well aware of this, which is why in 2020 he said he would reconsider taking the role of Ryan Evans were he offered the opportunity all over again, per TMZ.
“There’s so many amazingly talented gay actors who could do it as well. If High School Musical was today I don’t know if I would play Ryan. I would love to, but I just don’t know. The last thing I want to do is take an opportunity away from other people, and as a straight, white man, I know that even without trying I’ve taken opportunities away from people. “
There you have it, straight from the source. Lucas Grabeel is not gay in real life. He identifies as a straight man and even has a girlfriend named Riham according to his social media, whom he’s publicly dated since 2022, and possibly longer than that privately.
As someone whose best friend, who is a woman, briefly dated Grabeel in real life (before his current girlfriend) I can personally attest to Grabeel’s sexuality, not that it should need further corroboration after he himself has cleared up the matter, but I digress.
Straight or not, Grabeel clearly understands the importance of representation in media. His devotion to uplifting queer voices means we probably won’t see him play another gay character like Ryan on screen, so while we have the opportunity, let’s give him a standing ovation for the work he’s done with the beloved Disney character and commend him for recognizing Ryan’s importance both on and off-screen.