Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Disney Channel's Glory Days

Looking back at peak tween television. (Cue the drama!)

I’ll never forget the moment when Selena Gomez, then 16 years old, showed up at The AP’s New York City newsroom. Selena was promoting her Disney Channel movie The Princess Protection Program, and my editor had assigned me to interview her. I never watched The Disney Channel and barely knew who she was.

As an entertainment journalist, I’d spent a lot of time covering the sagas of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears; I half-expected Selena to exhibit a fun-loving fragility like those TMZ fixtures. Instead, she projected the poise of a polished, middle-aged woman running for elected office. She did not force smiles. She did not perform for me or try to get me to like her. She did not say anything especially interesting. But she spoke politely and with intelligence about her work and her life while a small entourage hovered nearby.

Selena Gomez on the set of Wizards of Waverly Place. (Source.)

Reader, I was impressed. And humbled! She acted so old for her age. (Was that normal? Ten years out of high school, I’d forgotten what it felt like to be that young. I did not recall me or my classmates ever speaking in perfect soundbites.)

At the time, Selena shouldered grown-up responsibilities: namely, her important role within the Disney Channel’s star system. She was the public face of the series Wizards of Waverly Place and encouraged to play The Good Girl in media interviews, lest she offend Disney and its wholesome values. She understood how to talk to journalists and (mostly) avoid the tabloid coverage that besmirched Lohan’s reputation.

The Disney Channel guarded its stars like a fortress, keeping Selena and Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron and Raven-Symoné and Hilary Duff on a tight leash. The teens learned that if they messed up in public, there’d be consequences. And despite the power of their individual brands, none was allowed to outshine The Mouse. Some Disney kids, like Demi Lovato and Shia LaBeouf, lacked the foundations to handle fame and crumbled under the weight of it all. But Selena has prospered. Miley, too.

Their formative experiences inside the bubble of the world’s biggest entertainment company have remained shrouded in mystery — until now. Ashley Spencer’s debut book, Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire, masterfully documents how a G-rated cable channel managed to capture the cultural zeitgeist in the 2000s, thanks in no small part to its stable of youthful talent. How did its TV princesses and princes survive the spotlight? I spoke with Ashley to find out.