THEY had us glued to our TV screens back in the day – and now long-lost American teen sitcoms are taking over TikTok.
From laughing at Kenan and Kel and lusting after Harvey Kinkle in Sabrina: The Teenage Witch to secretly wishing we had a twin like in Sister, Sister, we never missed an episode.
And now these Nineties and Noughties classics are finding new fans thanks to streaming, while others can’t resist re-watching for a spot of nostalgia.
This week Lizzie Maguire star Hilary Duff stunned fans when she posed completely naked on the front of Women’s Health magazine.
So what has come of other stars of our favourite teen shows?
From battling cancer and using her twin sister’s donated eggs to have a baby, to working as a caretaker to make ends meet, we reveal their varied fates.
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Sabrina: The Teenage Witch
From spells going wrong to love triangles and sarky put downs from Salem the cat, it had us cast under its spell until the series ended in 2003.
Star Melissa Joan Hart, now 46, has been candid about her wild times during the Sabrina years, confessing she got high on ecstasy, cheated on her then-boyfriend with film star Ryan Reynolds and almost got fired from the show for a nude magazine photoshoot.
But she is now a happily married mum-of-three to Mason, 16, Braydon, 12 and Tucker, eight – who are all child actors.
The actress lost nearly three stone after giving birth to Tucker, showing off her incredible transformation in a bikini for a magazine photoshoot.
She has moved from LA for a quieter life in Nashville, Texas, and recently starred in the American sitcom No Good Nick on Netflix.
Melissa’s on-screen love interest Harvey Kinkle, played by Nate Richert, has ditched acting altogether, revealing in 2018 he works as a caretaker and maintenance man and does “whatever random jobs I can get to pay the bills”.
Nate, who is also a musician, admitted that anxiety and depression got in the way of him fully pursuing a career in acting.
The clean-cut 44-year-old was our ultimate TV crush back in the Nineties but his appearance has changed a fair bit – he now sports stubble and glasses.
Sweet Valley High
This series about two beautiful twin sisters who moved to the fictional Sweet Valley High in California ran from 1994 until 1997.
Real life twins Brittany and Cynthia Daniel, now 46, shot to fame playing stars Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield.
In 2014, Brittany revealed she had secretly been battling cancer after being diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma three years earlier.
The actress underwent chemotherapy and moved in with her twin sister who gave her the strength to fight.
She said: “I really wasn’t afraid of dying. But I fought so hard because I could not leave her behind.”
She got the all-clear and went on to become a mum thanks to her twin after her cancer treatment left her struggling to get pregnant.
Brittany and her husband Adam Touni, a real estate broker, used Cynthia’s eggs and a surrogate to have daughter Hope late last year.
While Brittany has continued to act – starring in Dawson’s Creek and American sitcom Black-ish – Cynthia has switched to photography and has her own studio, Five Arrows Photography.
She is married to film and television actor Cole Kenneth Hauser – the baddie in 2 Fast 2 Furious – and they have three children together.
Kenan & Kel
We spent four years hooked on the antics of best friends Kenan and Kel, with the former’s get rich quick schemes usually messed up by his orange soda-loving buddy.
The show also featured a host of star-studded cameos, including Britney Spears.
Actors Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell were inseparable until the show finished in 2000, with Mitchell saying Thompson wanted a solo career.
Kenan, now 43, is the longest-running cast member of Saturday Night Live since joining in 2003, and has won an Emmy for his work on the hit show.
He is currently starring in a self-titled sitcom, playing a widowed dad-of-two – and fans say he hasn’t aged a bit.
Meanwhile Kel, also 43, has continued to work in telly too, and was nominated for an Emmy for his role in the animated series Clifford the Big Red Dog.
In 2006 he became the subject of a bizarre death hoax with rumours circulating on on MySpace he had died.
Kel has appeared as a regular on the reboot of comedy sketch show All That on Nickelodeon and more recently came runner up in Dancing With The Stars – the US version of Strictly – in 2019.
Sister, Sister
The sitcom, which ran for six series from 1994 until 1999, centred on twin sisters Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell – played by real life twins Tia and Tamera Mowry – who were separated at birth before coming together as teens.
After Sister, Sister ended, the twins attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where they both got degrees in psychology.
The sisters, now 43, later returned to our screens, often partnering up on telly projects together.
Tia is married to actor Cory Hardrict, whom she met on the set of the film Hollywood Horror, and they have two young children.
Tamera Mowry-Housley is married to journalist and former professional baseball player Adam Housley, and also has two children.
In 2013, she candidly admitted that she was 29 when she lost her virginity due to her religious beliefs.
Tamera, a panellist on American talk show Home and Family, was hit by tragedy when her 18-year-old niece Alaina Housley was killed in the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in California in 2018.
In an Instagram post, she wrote: “I’m still in disbelief. It’s not fair how you were taken… You are gonna make one gorgeous angel.”
Lizzie McGuire
The hit TV series ran from 2001 until 2004 and followed Hilary Duff as lead character Lizzie, as she navigated the trials and tribulations of her teenage years.
Now 34, Hilary juggles being a mum to her three children Luca, nine, Banks, three, and 14-month-old Mae with acting.
She currently stars in the spin-off comedy How I Met Your Father.
Ashlie Brillault, who played captain of the school cheerleading squad and Lizzie’s arch nemesis Kate Sanders, made her screen debut in Lizzie McGuire but decided to move away from acting and studied Law at the University of Denver.
Now married with a seven-year-old daughter, the 34-year-old works as a criminal defence attorney.
But she thrilled fans when she virtually reunited with the Lizzie McGuire cast to read an iconic episode from the original series during the pandemic in 2020.
That’s So Raven
This American teen sitcom about a teenager with hidden psychic abilities, played by Raven-Symoné Pearman, ran for four series from 2003 until 2007.
Raven, who made her screen debut aged just four playing adorable Olivia in The Cosby Show, has continued to act, starring in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and in Sister Act on Broadway.
Drake & Josh
The series, which ran from 2004 until 2007, revolved around two teenage step brothers, played by Drake Bell and Josh Peck.
Since the series ended, Josh has transformed himself from chubby child star to buff beach hunk after losing around 5st.
Speaking in 2006, he said: “I made a conscious effort to lose weight because I knew I could be happier as well as being healthier.
“I started by going on a diet and I got a personal trainer, but I definitely have a healthier lifestyle now.”
Josh, 35, is currently starring in How I Met Your Father and is married to film editor Paige O’Brien. They had a son in 2018.
His former co-star Drake, also 35, was sentenced to two years’ probation and 200 hours of community service over sexual texts with a minor last year.
Also a singer-songwriter, Drake appears to be focusing more on his music and appears to have rebranded himself as a Spanish-language singer complete with a new last name.
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In 2013 she briefly retired from acting to study fine art, but returned to the spotlight in 2015 to co-present the American talk show The View.
In 2016, Raven, now 36, announced she was a lesbian on an episode of The View and married social media manager Miranda Pearman-Maday in 2020.
