A former Disney Channel actor has come clean after lying about his age to land a role opposite Miley Cyrus.
Jason Earles played Cyrus’s older brother, Jackson Stewart, on Hannah Montana, which ran on Disney Channel from 2006 to 2011. The show followed teenager Miley Stewart (played by Cyrus) living a double life as both a high school student and world-famous pop star Hannah Montana.
Earles recently opened up about lying and getting away with it during the inaugural episode of the Best of Both Worlds podcast with the sitcom’s director Shannon Flynn and writer-producer Douglas Danger Lieblein.
“I was desperately afraid that I was going to be fired and recast because I had a big secret,” Earles recalled. “When I auditioned for the show, I lied to them and told them I was 18 years old.”
At the time of his audition, the actor was 28 years old — but Jackson was supposed to be 16.
“What’s funny is Lisa London, who cast it, when she brought me in, she was like, ‘Hey, I know you’re 19,’ because I had lied to her in a different audition. And she was like, ‘Would you be okay, when you go in there, would you lie and tell them that you’re 18?’ I was like, ‘I think I can do that,’” he continued.
Even after booking the role and shooting episodes of the hit Disney Channel show, Earles said people on set didn’t find out his real age until “halfway through the first season.”
“I didn’t find out until episode eight, and I think the network found out later than I did,” Lieblein explained.
Earles even admitted that someone from the network ended up confronting him over the lie and asked him if he had any other “secrets.”
“I remember one of the higher-up network executives showed up on show night and was like, ‘Hey, you’re, uh, 28? And you’re married?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that girl I keep making out with…that’s my wife,’” the Hannah Montana actor said.
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“And he was like, ‘Any more secrets? Anything else we should know? Do you have any kids?’ I was like ‘No,’ and he was like, ‘Let’s go ahead and keep it that way for a few years.’”
The podcast episode comes just a few days before the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special, which airs March 24 on Disney+.
Filmed in front of a live studio audience, the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special features an exclusive interview with Cyrus, hosted by Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper, as well as never-before-seen footage from the series.
