Pixar has been accused of force-changing Riley’s sexuality in their 2024 movie Inside Out 2, allegedly due to the backlash Lightyear received when featuring a same-sex kiss between Alisha and Kiko.
When the initial trailers for Inside Out 2 were released, fans began to speculate that Riley was perhaps gay and had a romantic interest in another character in the movie, Val.
However, once the movie hit the big screen, it became clear that the possibility of a same-sex romantic storyline in the sequel between Riley and Val wasn’t explored.
Now, unnamed former Pixar employees tell IGN that Riley’s potential gay storyline was forcefully changed, claiming that Disney had the studio make the sequel’s main character appear “less gay”.
The change, as aforementioned, was allegedly made due to the massive backlash and box office failure over the studio’s 2022 Toy Story spinoff movie, Lightyear.
Changes included making Riley and Val’s relationship in the sequel platonic, with edits being made to certain scenes to prevent audiences from further speculating about any “romantic chemistry” between them.
According to sources who spoke with IGN, the team behind the movie was forced into “doing a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see than as not straight.”
One, out of the various sources who spoke out, claimed that the studio bosses believe “Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it.”
“They have tried to walk a fine line between including minor LGBTQIA+ characters while not committing to these characters or their identities being a significant part of the story.”
Although many speculated Riley to be gay due to the sequel’s trailers, it has been noted how Pixar released a short in 2025 featuring Riley going on a date with a boy.
Inside Out 2 also revealed that Riley was holding onto a “deep dark secret” throughout the movie, however, it was revealed in the post-credits scene that the secret was her burning a hole into the carpet.
Some fans, on the other hand, believed her “secret” would reveal that she was gay.
“Mind you, Riley is not canonically gay,” one source explained.
“In the film, what you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but it is kind of inferred based on certain contexts,” they added.
“That is something that they tried to play down at multiple points.”
As per IGN, one source claimed Pixar leadership felt “uncomfortable” with LGBTQIA+ elements being in the movie, insisting they keep those elements out of Inside Out 2.
This was a “big thing throughout” the development of the sequel, claims one source.
“A sure fire way to reduce the audience by 50% is to put something political/controversial that half the country doesn’t necessarily agree with,” one said in response to the claims.
“You can thank Disney’s massive budgets on many several failed projects over the last few years for layoffs around Disney,” another said.
“They did another souless, politics rich, animated movie,” a third added.
“Avoiding LGBTQ+ themes and the film was a financial success? It’s almost as if… nah, surely not,” another wrote in response.
“Finally they are admitting to aiming this stuff at kids all along,” one replied.
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