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Josh Gad Shares Regrets About Gay LeFou In Disney's Live-Action 'Beauty and the Beast' Remake

Josh Gad Shares Regrets About Gay LeFou In Disney’s Live-Action ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Remake

The actor is opening up about the public response and the global controversy surrounding his Beauty and the Beast character in his new memoir…

Eight years after the release of Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, actor Josh Gad is reflecting on the controversy surrounding the film’s so-called “exclusively gay moment.” In his just-released memoir In Gad We Trust, Gad claims that he “never once” played his character LeFou as gay, and brushes off the implication that the 2017 film was intended to feature Disney’s “first-ever gay character” despite a brief scene towards the end of the film in which his character, LeFou, was seen dancing with another man.

“I for one certainly didn’t exactly feel like LeFou was who the queer community had been wistfully waiting for,” Gad writes. “I can’t quite imagine a Pride celebration in honor of the ‘cinematic watershed moment’ involving a quasi-villainous Disney sidekick dancing with a man for half a second. I mean, if I were gay, I’m sure I’d be pissed.”

Gad also notes that he “never once discussed” LeFou’s sexuality with the movie’s creative team, and described the much-buzzed-about dancing scene as “harmless” and “a fun blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little beat.” 

Gad says that prior to production commencing that he, director Bill Condon, and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos had a “casual (but ultimately seismic) conversation… about the specific nature of LeFou’s devotion to Gaston (Luke Evans). In the course of our discussions, we tried to distinguish whether or not LeFou loved Gaston or was in love with Gaston.”

They “ultimately landed on the side of LeFou was truly in awe of Gaston, and that was not driven by any sexual desire whatsoever but rather a deep-seated love, appreciation, and belief in this person he had served alongside in battle for many years.” To be as clear as possible, Gad reiterates that the Beauty and the Beast creative team “never once discussed” putting the focus on “LeFou’s sexuality, which frankly was not a thing to really explore in a random comedic character in the film… or so I thought.”

However, prior to the release of the film the marketing focus did shift onto LeFou’s sexuality.

The discourse surrounding LeFou’s sexuality can be traced an interview that Condon had with Attitude in March 2017 in which he said the following: “LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston. He’s confused about what he wants… and Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”

Gad felt that “the quote in and of itself was delightful, beautiful, and perfect… but for those three fateful words: ‘EXCLUSIVELY GAY MOMENT.'”

The actor makes it clear throughout his discussion of the Beauty and the Beast debacle that he would have been “delighted” to play a gay LeFou. The fact simply was that “never once was the moment in this film described to me as something that we were going to hang a lantern on and pat ourselves on the back for. In fact, if it had, I never would have agreed to the seemingly sweet and innocuous moment.”

“It was both too little and not enough to be anything more than it was.” he wrote.

After Condon’s remarks were published, Beauty and the Beast wasn’t just seen as a film featuring an ambiguous moment of queer affirmation, but as an explicit political statement.

“Had the audience defined it as a sweet exclusively gay moment,” Gad writes, “I would have been delighted! But the second we pointed it out and seemingly congratulated ourselves, we had invited hell and fury.”

After news of the subplot made headlines, and news of the brief shot of LeFou dancing with another man prompted an intense public backlash, Beauty and the Beast was banned in several countries and drew boycotts in the U.S. Still, the film was a box office smash, raking in a reported $1.2 billion worldwide.

Gad says that Condon, who is gay, “felt awful” about his remarks, and “felt put on the spot… to share his pride for some form of representation in the film” during the interview with Attitude.

This is not the first time Gad has spoken about the intense backlash that his character and Beauty and the Beast received. At the time of the release, Gad remarked in interviews that “too much has probably been made of this entire thing,” and later in 2022 reflected in an interview that, “We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades… We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’ My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that.”

As for Gad’s relationship with Disney today? A Tony Award nominee for The Book of Mormon, Gad continues to have a professional relationship with Disney, having endeared himself to a generation of viewers as the voice of Olaf in the Frozen films. As for Disney’s depiction of the LGBTQ+ community in its films and television series, that continues to remain spotty…

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