Mean Girls’ Avantika Vandanapu calls Karen Shetty a ‘pansexual queen’
Avantika Vandanapu has opened up about Karen Shetty’s sexuality. (Arturo Holmes/Getty/Paramount Pictures)
The 2024 reboot of Mean Girls is finally out now in cinemas, and it’s making all our queer dreams come true.
Another key difference between the 2024 and 2004 movies, the actor who plays the revised role of Karen Shetty has shared a glimpse of her character’s sexuality.
In a recent interview, Avantika Vandanapu says she considers her character, who is one-third of The Plastics, to be pansexual. “If you tell me Karen is anything but pansexual, I have beef with you,” she told Gay Times.
Her character has a whole solo song dedicated to running the world and being hot (brb, adding Sexy to our Spotify playlist rn), and hilariously calls Regina’s unfortunate pimple “sexy, like a face breast”.
Vandanapu is not the only actor in the new film to dig deep and discuss their character’s sexual identity, with Reneé Rapp also believing that her version of Regina is part of the LGBTQ+ community. This is, thankfully, a far cry from the original movie, in which the head mean girl is homophobic towards Janis.
In an interview with Teen Vogue, Rapp seemed to confirm that her version of the queen bee would be “very gay” – if not directly in the storyline, then at least between the lines – as well as describing the character as a “likeable b*tch”.
She was also pretty direct with fans about Regina’s queerness, captioning several behind-the-scenes photos of the film’s set on Instagram with: “Regina George was a lesbian”, which predictably drove fans wild.
Back in December, the 24-year-old also dropped a single for the film with none other than Megan Thee Stallion, playing on the iconic Mean Girls quote: “It’s not my fault you’re, like, in love with me or something!”
Queer fans jumped at the song’s hints at Regina’s sexuality, with Rapp singing in the second verse: “Get her number, get her name/ Get a good thing while you can/ Kiss a blonde, kiss a friend/ Can a gay girl get an, ‘Amen?'”
Mean Girls is out now in cinemas in the UK.
