In 2010, Pretty Little Liars premiered on ABC Family (now Freeform), and Aria Montgomery and Ezra Fitz quickly became a fan-favorite couple despite their eyebrow-raising student-teacher dynamic. However, the show’s creator recently made a bold admission about the romance.
Marlene King, Ian Harding and Lucy Hale recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to chat about the popular series—based on the books written by Sara Shepard—15 years after the pilot aired. Among the topics they tackled was Ezria’s relationship.
“What we know now about grooming, that was not something we talked about 15 years ago,” King shared. “I’ve always thought that if we revisit the world, we would have to deal with that. That would be a storyline we’d have to pay attention to and give focus to. But I think they can have their happily ever after because they were everybody’s favorite couple.”
As fans of PLL know, Ezra (Harding) and Aria (Hale) met and kissed at a bar before she started her junior year of high school. Aria was horrified to discover that Ezra was her new high school English teacher. Despite their notable age gap and laws prohibiting teachers from having romantic relationships with students, the couple engaged in a forbidden romance, ultimately ending up together at the end of the seven-season series.
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King confessed of the controversial coupling, “We were definitely probably crossing a line I wouldn’t cross now, but I don’t want to take away from what they had, either. It was very satisfying for a lot of fans.”
Meanwhile, Hale and Harding also weighed in on the relationship between Aria and Ezra.
Harding conceded, “As society has progressed, we realized how wildly inappropriate it was,” while pointing out, “But at the same time, just because you depict something on TV doesn’t mean you condone the behavior.”
Hale echoed these sentiments, noting that she was 19 when she was cast as Aria and sees things a bit differently now.
“I wasn’t really thinking about the bigger themes of it all,” she told THR. “I was just stoked to be cast in a TV show. Of course, it hits differently at my age now and I think about the bigger message in anything I play.”
Fans of PLL can relive the romance and mind-blowing twists and turns of the teen drama/mystery/drama/thriller by streaming all seven seasons on Max.
Pretty Little Liars, streaming on Max