These 2 Stars Almost Landed the Hannah Montana Role Instead of Miley Cyrus

Spotted: little Jenny Humphrey at the Hannah Montana casting call. In a recent TikTok, the director who put together the lineup of actors for the popular Disney Channel show revealed which two young stars almost landed the role of Hannah over Miley Cyrus — and you’ll definitely recognize them if you were a fan of Gossip Girl or Victorious.

The series’ casting director Lisa London originally posted the TikTok to correct another creator who claimed that Belinda was in the final trio of hopefuls vying for the role of a part-time pop star who hides her real identity, originally named Chloe Stewart — which of course later became Miley Stewart once Cyrus landed the role.

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“I’m actually the original casting director on Hannah Montana and I discovered Miley Cyrus,” London began. “I wanted to let everybody know that Belinda, who’s lovely by the way, was never in the top three for the role of Hannah.”

“These are the final three actresses that auditioned at the network test out of over 1200 girls,” she continued, showing the piece of paper dated May 6, 2005, that she used to check off the three remaining contenders as they performed their last audition for the sitcom.

Cyrus’ name was second on the audition sheet, meanwhile the first was Taylor Momsen — aka, Gossip Girl‘s Jenny Humphrey and now lead singer of rock band The Pretty Reckless. About two years after she missed out on the role of Hannah, the first episode of Gossip Girl — the show that also made Penn Badgley, Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford famous — would air, with Momsen playing Badgley’s fashion-loving little sister.

And third on the list was Daniella Monet, whose breakout role also ended up being the sister of another lead character. She played Victoria Justice’s hopelessly untalented older sibling Trina Vega on Victorious, a show which also gave rise to Ariana Grande.

Watch Lisa London’s TikTok below:

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