Is there a Disney curse?: Demi, Selena, and Miley

November 18, 2025·48 min·4 clips

Why did Demi, Selena, and Miley's 2025 albums underperform despite their superstar status?

Rihanna Cruz and Nate Sloan are holding down headquarters while Charlie Harding is off in Norway, and that smaller setup gives the episode a nice two-person snap before the Disney question drops. Is there a Disney curse, or at least a trail of performers still singing through what came after? Demi Lovato is where the pressure hits first. The album can sound bright, even victorious, but the hosts hear something less tidy under it: childhood trauma that has not politely left the room. The scars are in the sound, which keeps the conversation out of gossip mode and inside the music. Tone and delivery have to do the work. Selena Gomez arrives through Princess Protection Program, and Rihanna uses that connection to make the contrast feel obvious without flattening either artist. Demi can belt hard enough to shove the air around. Selena works almost the other way, close to the ear, hushed, muted, breathy, sensual, almost conversational. Nate treats that as craft, not a workaround. The point is not that Selena comes up short because she is not chasing Demi Lovato's notes. Her scale is different. "ASMR pop" sticks because it gets at the body feel of the voice, the headphone tingle. There is some cursive singing in there too, which gives the hosts room to be funny without letting the analysis drift away. Disney stays in the room as pressure, not a neat verdict. These artists are not clones from the same machine. They are performers whose childhood work still seems to echo in the music. The curse question does not need a clean answer. The evidence is audible enough: victory, intimacy, damage, polish, and pop technique all bumping into each other.

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