Break out the bubbly, it’s time to celebrate, Carlos and Seb fans!
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/frankiearodriguez/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Frankie A. Rodriguez and Joe Serafini, the actors who met on Disney+’s mockumentary TV drama High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,announced on Instagramthat their on-screen romance has led to their real-life engagement.
Their three-photo-post from Saturdayshows the couple in an urban park, Rodriguez playfully riding piggyback on Serafini, each of them beaming with joy and holding up their left hands to show off their engagement rings. Rodriguez’s caption says, simply, “engaged!” with a diamond ring, a heart, and a pair of toasting champagne glasses emojis.
Serafini replied using several smiling-face-with-hearts emojis.
Their Wildcats costars, the series creator, and fans alike commented with congratulatory messages.
“YES YES YES YES YES. GREATEST COUPLE OF ALL TIME,” wrote actor Matt Cornett, who played E.J. Caswell in the Disney+ series. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” wrote their former costar, out actor Joshua Bassett, who played “Ricky,” the male lead on the series.
Out gay showrunner and creator Tim Federle’s comment was “nature is healing” with a red heart emoji. In 2022, Bassett credited Federle with helping him come out, asOutreported.
Actress Dara Reneé, who played Kourtney Greene on the series, added her all-caps congrats: “I’VE BEEN PRAYING FOR THIS MOMENT!! LOVE YALL SO MUCH!!!!” with several celebratory emojis. Costar Julia Lester, who played Ashlyn Caswell, joined the conversation with this comment: “THOSE ARE LITERALLY MY FAVORITE PPL ON THE PLANET REALLY TRULY.”
There were congratulatory comments from other “Wildcast” actors Sofia Wylie, Larry Saperstein, Samuel Adrian, Liamani Segura, Oli official Disney+ Instagram account: “We couldn’t be happier for you two!”
Fan comments included “The HSMTMTS fandom is SCREAMING (I’m the HSMTMTS fandom)” and “the absolute power of hsmtmts to bring upon queer love.”
When Bassett, Serafini, and Rodriguez were interviewed byHollywirein 2021, the couple confirmed they were dating. AsOutreported in 2024, Rodriguez is gay, Serafini is bisexual, and Bassett prefers to identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
In 2021,Outtold the story of Serafini and Rodriguez’s performance of Disney’s first-ever same-sex love song: “East High’s favorite assistant-director-turned-talking-candlestick sang a swoon-worthy song to his boyfriend Seb.”
As reporter Mey Rude wrote, it’s “a perfect song for queer youth, especially those in places where there may not be a lot of other queer people. With a message of choosing your partner for who they are, instead of because they’re just there, ‘In a Heartbeat’ is the latest classic Disney love song.”
The Disney+ series ran from 2019 to 2023 as one of the streamer’s first shows and went on to win a GLAAD Media Award and Kids Choice Award. AsOutreported, the show’s fourth and final season focused on the Wildcats’ return to East High for senior year, and how their plans for a production of High School Musical 3: Senior Yearwere disrupted when Disney announced the long-awaited High School Musical 4: The Reunion, to be shot at their school.
Pridereported on how Rodriguez and Serafini reacted to the end of the series. “It’s hard to wrap your heads around, even four years into these characters, just the power of their existence on the screen to people watching at home,” said Serafini, adding that the show never made a big deal out of Seb and Joe’s relationship.
“Yeah, it’s just been so incredible and to have them exist in this natural, not pushed or forced way. I mean, Seb and Carlos are just in a relationship,” he said. “That’s all it really is.”
Rodriguez revealed he and Sarafini took home a huge and iconic piece from their time on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
“I turned to Joe and said, ‘you should ask for the piano” and he was like, ‘no, no, no they’ll never do it,” recalled Rodriguez. “I said ‘just ask for it’ and he asked Tim Ferderle, our showrunner, for the piano and two weeks after we wrapped the piano showed up at our door.”
That famous rehearsal-room piano is in the apartment that the couple share together. “We hope to have it in a house someday where we can have the cast over and like everyone can play it,” Serafini said.
The piano was especially meaningful to the pair because Serafini often gathered the cast together for sing-alongs while on set.
“Joe was always like ‘The Piano Man,'” Rodriguez said. “So I think anytime cameras went down and there was a piano in the room and Joe was able to bring everybody together for, like, a big ‘ol singing moment. Those were always the best because everybody is so amazing, so the fact that they were just willing to do it for free — it was great.”
This article originally appeared on Out: ‘High School Musical’s Joe Serafini and Frankie A. Rodriguez are engaged
