Lucy Hale stood by her decision to recreate a scene from Pretty Little Liars with Ian Harding after the former costars received backlash for promoting their “problematic” onscreen romance.
Hale, 37, uploaded an Instagram video on Saturday, October 24, showing Harding, 40, lifting her up in a frame-by-frame recreation of their first scene together on Pretty Little Liars as Aria and Ezra, respectively.
“A little older and wiser but the same two idiots!” she captioned the post before promoting the duo’s upcoming holiday film. “12 dates of Christmas comin soon. Like really sooon. Info sooon ❤️.”
Hale subsequently received backlash in the comments section for making reference to Aria and Ezra’s romance. Since PLL came to an end in 2017, the fictional couple have been called out for glamorizing predatory relationships between an older man and a teenager. (Ezra was Aria’s high school English teacher when they met in the pilot of the Freeform show.)
“I’m obviously seeing a lot of the comments, and I just want to say that two realities can be very true,” Hale explained in a subsequent Instagram video on Sunday, October 25. “It’s very obvious that Aria and Ezra is problematic and it did not age well. And that can be very true.”
The actress, however, noted that her intention wasn’t to promote Pretty Little Liars.
“It can also be true that Ian and I were teenagers when we were doing that show and we were quick friends and we have known each other, like, almost 20 years,” she continued. “So the video was actually more about Ian and I’s friendship — not glamorizing anything.”
Hale and Harding previously weighed in on how the tide had shifted when it came to their age-gap romance on the show.
“It was a different time. Would that story line exist if it were being made now? I’m not sure, but probably not,” Hale told The Hollywood Reporter in June 2025. “At the time I was cast as Aria, I was 19 years old and I wasn’t really thinking about the bigger themes of it all. I was just stoked to be cast in a TV show.”
She added, “Of course, it hits differently at my age now and I think about the bigger message in anything I play. I don’t have regrets, though. I stand behind their love story forever. That forbidden love story drew a lot of people in.”
Harding, meanwhile, tried to focus on the connection between the characters.
“What we tried to demonstrate over and over was that there was a meaningful connection,” he told THR. “Hopefully, that was enough to justify the deeply problematic relationship that was certainly not great at the time. Especially as society has progressed, we realized how wildly inappropriate it was.”
He continued, “I’m happy with the way it turned out because maybe that makes it a little less icky, which is always tough to say because I also love those characters. I love Ezra and as an actor, you have to advocate for this person, no matter who they are. They both found happiness, and there was little collateral damage or pain inflicted by the relationship. There was plenty of pain and horror everywhere on the show, but oddly enough, their relationship seemed to be a safe haven in the storm.”
Harding also noted that their relationship was meant to be “purposely taboo.”
“We were playing into this fantasy. I certainly had the teacher fantasy thing when I was in high school, but at the same time, just because you depict something on TV doesn’t mean you condone the behavior,” he said. “It is a story meant for entertainment, and the show was a thriller. Now that I look back on it, I see that it was just like the show, with the twists and turns, and it had some horror elements and then it also had this romance component. I don’t deeply regret it because it’s fiction.”
