Josh Gad Recalls 'Hell and Fury' Response to His Character's 'Exclusively Gay Moment' in “Beauty and the Beast”

Josh Gad is reflecting on "all the fuss" made about his character's split-second moment in Disney's Beauty and the Beast in 2017.

At the time, much was said about Gad's character LeFou dancing with another man in a brief scene, sparking headlines that it was the "first gay Disney character" after director Bill Condon said in an interview that there was a "nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie."

Gad, 43, writes about Condon's comments in his new memoir In Gad We Trust, saying it all was blown out of proportion and he "never once" played the character as gay.

"I for one certainly didn't exactly feel like LeFou was who the queer community had been wistfully waiting for. I can't quite imagine a Pride celebration in honor of the 'cinematic watershed moment' involving a quasi-villainous Disney sidekick dancing with a man for half a second. I mean, if I were gay, I'm sure I'd be pissed," the Frozen actor writes in the book, according to Entertainment Weekly.

He adds that the team behind Beauty and the Beast "never once discussed" centering "LeFou's sexuality, which frankly was not a thing to really explore in a random comedic character in the film ... or so I thought."

The quick same-sex dancing scene "seemed harmless enough — a fun blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little beat," Gad recalls thinking.

Related: Luke Evans Says He 'Wouldn't Have Had a Career' If Gay Actors Could Only Play Gay Roles

After Condon's Attitude interview, the "exclusively gay moment" line became controversial, sparking boycotts and even getting the movie banned in certain countries that censor LGBTQ content. The film — which starred Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Luke Evans — still went on to be a smash-hit, earning over $1 billion at the global box office.

Had he known so much emphasis would be directed at the "seemingly sweet and innocuous moment," he "never would have agreed" to it, Gad says in the book: It was "both too little and not enough to be anything more than it was."

"Had the audience defined it as a sweet exclusively gay moment I would have been delighted," he writes. "But the second we pointed it out and seemingly congratulated ourselves, we had invited hell and fury."

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In March 2017, director Condon told ScreenCrush his comments had become "overblown" and added, "Why is it a big deal?" Then, in 2022, Gad noted to The Independent that they "didn't go far enough" with the gay representation "to warrant accolades."

"We didn't go far enough to say, 'Look how brave we are.' My regret in what happened is that it became 'Disney's first explicitly gay moment' and it was never intended to be that," he said at the time. "It was never intended to be a moment that we should laud ourselves for, because frankly I don't think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be."

"That was not LeFou. If we're going to pat ourselves on the back, then damn it we should have gone further with that," Gad continued. "Everybody deserves an opportunity to see themselves onscreen, and I don't think we've done enough — and I certainly haven't done enough to do that."

In Gad We Trust is available now wherever books are sold.

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