Bill Condon, the director of Beauty and the Beast, sparked headlines and international controversy when he told Attitude magazine that the film would have an "exclusively gay moment."
The scene, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in which LeFou dances with another man at the end of the film, sparked boycotts in theaters from Malaysia to Alabama. Regardless, the film ended up being a huge financial success.
Josh Gad, the actor who played Gaston's sidekick, revealed that "LeFou's happy ending" was his idea all along in an interview with Andy Cohen.
"Here's what we decided — we decided that LeFou's happy ending would be to dance with another man," Gad said on Radio Andy, a SiriusXM channel, while promoting his new film Frozen 2. "It was my pitch; that's how I really wanted the movie to end. I was so amazed they let us do it."
Gad addressed the controversy the moment caused — as well as how he hoped Disney would continue to expand its LGBTQ representation. There has yet to be a clearly out character in a major Disney film, although many Frozen fans had hoped the character of Elsa, whom many LGBTQ people related to, might come out.
"We never meant to put a spotlight on it. It became a conflated, weird controversy," Gad said of the Beauty and the Beast moment. "In light of that fact that so many people were like, 'Blah, blah, blah,' there were so many people who stood up and applauded that moment and were so excited about it."
"I think there is still lots more work to be done in equal representation, and I really hope that Disney keeps finding more ways to do that."
Listen to the conversation below.
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