What Happened To The Hannah Montana Characters After Disney Cut The Cameras (It’s Rough)

It’s been two decades since Hannah Montana gaslit an entire state of California into believing bangs and a wig were a disguise. Now, with the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special headed to Disney+ on March 24, the nostalgia industrial complex is back in full force. Before we revisit the closet elevator and pretend we don’t remember every lyric, we decided to check in on the cast. And unfortunately for them, time has not been subtle.

Miley Stewart / Hannah Montana

Miley abandons her half-hearted psych major at Stanford after her freshman year to open for Taylor Swift on the Red tour as Hannah. She’s initially a member of Taylor’s infamous girl squad, but decides to take a step back when she finds out Lorde called her an “industry plant” behind her back. After a couple of modestly successful country-pop albums, Hannah settles into a mentor role on American Idol — her multi-season on-screen flirtation with Keith Urban is widely speculated to be the cause of his divorce from Nicole.

Lilly Truscott

Lilly immediately blocks Miley on Instagram after she leaves school, but still has a secret burner account she uses to keep up with her. She gets married too young out of a deep-seated need to show everyone from high school that she’s doing better than them, then shows up completely sloshed to her ten-year reunion at Rico’s Surf Shop, which has expanded into a Hooters-style tiki bar. She’s currently seeking a publisher for a tell-all memoir about her teenage friendship with Hannah, with a vaguely shady title like Blonde Ambition or My Famous Frenemy (Random House passed, but there’s still Simon & Schuster).

Jake Ryan

Jake does one indie A24 film where he plays a depressed architect and now exclusively refers to himself as “an artist.” He shares a publicist with Austin Butler and publicly reframes the cheating scandal as “a miscommunication rooted in youth and abundance.” He gets really into cold plunges and posts black-and-white gym selfies with captions like “discipline = freedom.” He joins a prestige HBO limited series that gets canceled after one season but still updates his IMDb headshot annually. Every few years he floats a “reunion with my famous ex” concept to Netflix. Sources say it hasn’t moved forward due to “scheduling conflicts” — on Miley’s end.

Jesse

Jesse releases one critically acclaimed EP called Analog Heartbreak that Pitchfork gives a 7.2 and then immediately forgets about. He hosts a soft-boy YouTube series called “Unplugged & Unhealed” where he interviews other men about vulnerability while wearing wide-leg trousers and a single silver hoop. He insists he and Miley ended “mutually,” but every chorus includes a line about a girl who “chose the machine over the melody.” He briefly dates a plant-based chef who runs a Substack about emotional labor, but they break up when she accuses him of turning their arguments into content. His Instagram bio says “not the McCartney Jesse,” and rumor has it he has the words “same beautiful eyes” tattooed on his inner left thigh.

Jackson Stewart

Jackson turns the old beach shack lore into a “heritage coastal lifestyle” brand that sells $98 hoodies and beef jerky called Salted Intention. He had a crypto phase. He had a podcast phase. He now runs corporate team-building retreats in Joshua Tree where he teaches executives how to “fail forward.” Somehow, he’s the only one with stable credit and what he describes as a “thriving” marriage to Siena. Their couples’ therapist has thoughts, but HIPAA is a ride-or-die. He still calls Miley “my sis” publicly like he didn’t blackmail her for concert tickets her entire adolescence.

Robby Ray

Robby Ray fully rebrands as a “legacy country truth-teller” and now writes three-paragraph Facebook statuses about “real instruments” and “songs that mean something…” complete with at least two unnecessary ellipses per post. He headlines mid-tier festivals sponsored by tractor brands and introduces himself as “Hannah Montana’s dad” even when no one asked. He was quietly slated to make a guest appearance on Idol, but the Miley–Keith Urban rumors put the special on pause. The wig — which he claims joint custody of — remains in a glass case. He calls it “history.”

Rico Suave

Rico becomes a multi-millionaire at the age of 16 by getting in on the ground floor of Dogecoin. He spends his twenties as a scummy DeuxMoi playboy, and fans are convinced that Madison Beer’s second album was largely influenced by their situationship. He becomes an executive producer of Beast Games after bro-ing down with Mr. Beast at Jeff Bezos’ wedding. ABC reluctantly calls him in to be a guest shark on Shark Tank whenever the guy from Chobani calls out sick.

Oliver Oken

Oliver manages the Brookstone at the Century City Mall, where he alternates between watching Judd Apatow movies in 154 parts on TikTok and playing with the remote control fighter jets. He and the cashier at LensCrafters are in a Green Day cover band together — they mostly do it for the love of the game, and the occasional Bar Mitzvah.

Mikayla Skeech

Mikayla was never able to top the success of her debut single, “If Cupid Had a Heart,” and mostly faded into obscurity until the song was ironically resurrected on TikTok during the pandemic with a slutty little dance. Thanks to all the love, she now pays her rent through $36 Cameos and state fair performances; she emails NBC weekly about a spot on The Traitors as a “nostalgic fave.”