Keri Russell remembers when she was no longer eligible to be a Mouseketeer.
The Felicity alum began starring on the Disney Channel remake of the ’50s children’s variety series The Mickey Mouse Club in 1991. After two years, alongside the likes of Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling, she exited the series at the age of 17.
And she has a theory as to why.
“It’s usually girls who looked like they were sexually active,” the 48-year-old told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the July 9 episode of his podcast Dinner’s On Me of who got the boot from the show. “Which, probably, I was one of the first.”
She later added jokingly, ”Pregnant Mouseketeers aren’t on the roster.”
The Diplomat actress also signaled that there was a disparity between the trajectory of female and male actors on the new Mickey Mouse Club.
“We had boys stay till they were like 19,” she said. “I was like, ‘Um, by the way, I had sex with that person, I know that they’ve had sex.'”