Cassie Steele is reflecting on her Degrassi character’s infamous thong moment.
The actress, 32, spoke to Nylon about the recent comparisons between Alexa Demie’s Euphoria character Maddy Perez and Steele’s Degrassi: The Next Generation character Manny Santos, particularly when it comes to their “less-is-more” senses of fashion.
While Maddy turned heads when she wore pants with serious cut-outs to the school carnival on the controversial HBO dramaS, Manny dropped jaws following her scandalous makeover — which included strutting the halls with her bedazzled blue thong hanging out from her jeans in eason 3’s “U Got the Look,” which aired in 2003.
Steele recalled watching Maddy’s carnival scene on Euphoria, explaining, “I saw the character, Maddy… And she had these pants, and I was like, ‘Oh that’s so Manny-esque, that’s so much fun.’ I feel like possibly that was… maybe that’s why Manny’s look is doing a comeback.”
Steele even recreated the look on TikTok, which received the seal of approval from her co-star Drake, who played Jimmy on the series under the name Aubrey Graham.
Of filming her own TV moment, the L.A. Complex alum had mixed feelings.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my butt looks terrible in these pants, there’s this camera on my butt.’ And I’m 14 at that time,” she noted. “It was exhilarating, but also very nerve-wracking. So I feel like it opened a lot of doors for me, but anything at that age is so heightened and kids are so judgmental because they’re sensitive, so it was definitely a blazing path to go down. Imagine if there was social media at that time? I can just imagine all the ways that it could have gone wrong.”
While Steele told Nylon that she doesn’t keep in touch with many of her Degrassi co-stars, she did reunite with the gang in 2018 for Drake’s “I’m Upset” music video, which brought the cast back to Degrassi Community School.
Now, Degrassi may get the Euphoria treatment. The Canadian series, which ended its run on Netflix under the name Degrassi Next Class, will get the reboot treatment on HBO Max. Whether the thong moment will also get a second life with a new character is unclear.
