‘Rugrats’ Voice Actor Says Cast Always Sensed Betty DeVille Character Was Gay

betty-deville-90s-rugrats
Nickelodeon

Voice actress E.G. Daily, who voiced Tommy Pickles in Nickelodeon’s hit cartoon Rugrats, said the series cast always sensed the character Betty DeVille was a lesbian, in wake of the upcoming Paramount+ reboot declaring Deville is openly gay.

“Betty is a member of the LGBTQ community, which is super awesome, because our characters on Rugrats are starting to get more specific, although, we all kind of had feelings or ideas about them,” Daily told TMZ in a recent interview.

“Now, because of the times we’re in, it’s really beautiful that people get to be who they are, and we’re embracing everybody’s freedom, and everybody’s desire to be authentic,” Daily continued. “So Betty is, yes, she’s a member of the LGBTQ community.”

The voice actress added that the cast didn’t talk openly about the character being gay in the past, because “we did [the show] a while ago,” and “it wasn’t really spoken of” back then.

“It wasn’t really spoken of, but we all kind of just, like, you can kind of feel — you know when you have friends in school, and you’re, like, when you’re a little kid, and you’re, like, ‘That little girl would rather be a boy,’ and you just kind of know,” she said.

Now, Betty in Rugrats‘ Betty DeVille — who is Phil and Lil’s mom in the show — will be openly gay, and will be voiced by anti-Trump actor Natalie Morales. Kath Soucie, the voice behind DeVille in the original series, will still be portraying her children, Phil and Lil.

The original Rugrats series ran from 1991 to 2004.

Daily added that the reboot will also focus on millennials and will change with the times, adding that the Grandpa Lou character “is a hippie who does yoga” in the new series.

“Grandpa Lou is a hippie who does yoga,” Daily said. “Like, there’s blogging, and Grandpa Lou’s on a dating app, and there’s a lot of really cute, really cool things of today, like cell phones.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

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