Monique Coleman says Disney ‘broke her heart’ after High School Musical 3 snub

15 December 2022, 18:02

High School Musical cast reunite to sing ‘We’re All in This Together’ in Disney sing-along

By Katie Louise Smith

"I wasn’t invited on the tour. They said something about there not being enough room on the plane."

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We all know and love Monique Coleman thanks to her role as Taylor McKessie in High School Musical 1, 2 and 3. But now the star has opened up about how Disney "broke her heart" during the promotional tour for the third movie.

Monique played Taylor in all three High School Musical movies, and was a huge part of the main cast. The role was her breakout moment. While she reached some incredible highs with her fellow cast mates, it sounds like Monique's experience towards the end of her time in the franchise left her feeling down about the whole thing.

While speaking to Christy Carlson Romano on her podcast Vulnerable, Monique opened up about her time playing Taylor in the HSM films and revealed that she was not invited to promote the franchise's final movie on tour with the rest of the cast, despite being a main character.

Monique Coleman opens up about not being invited on the HSM3 press tour. Picture: Momodu Mansaray/Getty Images, Disney

"I feel safe to say this: Disney really broke my heart," Monique confessed. “When I got to the third movie, I really championed the film. I always spoke so positively, and I was a Black girl playing the smartest girl in school, which was a very big deal at that time. When it came to promoting the third movie, I wasn’t invited on the tour."

Monique continued: "They said something about there not being enough room on the plane and they only invited Zac [Efron], Vanessa [Hudgens], Ashley [Tisdale], and Corbin [Bleu]. Lucas [Grabeel] and I weren’t included."

Monique added that that heartbreak hit her "very deeply" and ultimately left her in a "bit of a depression", but went on to explain that the decision also helped her realise that she was overly identifying with what she was doing and not who she was.

"That was what led me to take that step and say, 'Maybe this is my five minutes of fame. Maybe this is it in some way'. And if that is the case, then what am I going to do with that?"

High School Musical 3. Picture: Disney via Alamy

Thankfully, it seems like Monique is ready to embrace her High School Musical era again, as she has teased her appearance in the upcoming fourth season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

Monique will be playing a fictional version of herself as she reunites with some of her former cast mates.

"It's really like a movie within a movie," she told E! News. "It's a show within a show, within a show. And so we're playing ourselves and our characters. I'm playing myself—a heightened version of myself—as well as coming back as Taylor."