Lucy Hale admits her 'Pretty Little Liars' storyline 'did not age well'

Lucy Hale is addressing the renewed backlash over her Pretty Little Liars storyline.

Over the weekend, the actress recreated a scene from the hit teen drama with her on-screen love interest Ian Harding as the pair reunited to promote their new holiday film, 12 Dates of Christmas.

While some PLL fans were excited for the reunion, others were quick to point out the inappropriate nature of the romance between Hale’s Aria and Harding’s Ezra, given that he was her high school teacher on the show.

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“I’m obviously seeing a lot of the comments, and I just want to say that two realities can be very true,” Hale explained in a follow-up video on Sunday, October 25, per US Weekly. “It’s very obvious that Aria and Ezra is problematic and it did not age well. And that can be very true.”

She added, “So the video was actually more about Ian and I’s friendship — not glamorizing anything.”

Both Hale, 37, and Harding, 40, have previously acknowledged that Aria and Ezra’s storyline was problematic. Hale told The Hollywood Reporter in 2025 that the relationship “hits differently now” while admitting she didn’t “have regrets.”

“I stand behind their love story. That forbidden love story drew a lot of people in,” she added.

Meanwhile, Harding said that Aria and Ezra’s “meaningful connection” was hopefully “enough to justify the deeply problematic relationship.”

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