They're sexy, they're cute and then they got the boot.
According to Gabrielle Union, she and her fellow actresses who played the main Clovers cheerleaders in Bring It On, ran into some bad luck when it came to the final edit of the cult 2000 teen comedy. On Saturday, Jan. 8, the actress posted on her TikTok a video showing film footage not seen in the actual movie, which includes scenes with her and the R&B group Blaque members Shamari Fears DeVoe, Brandi Williams and the late Natina Reed. Ultimately, the rival Toros cheerleaders, led by Kirsten Dunst, got the majority of the screen time in Bring It On.
"We shot these snippets that you see here after the movie wrapped because once test audiences saw the movie, they wanted more of the Clovers," Union said. "So we shot these only for the trailer, not for the movie, to make people think we were in the movie more than we were. The end."
Production company Beacon Communications and distributor Universal Pictures had no immediate comment when reached by E! News.
Some of the footage Union showed is included in the most recent official Bring It On trailer, posted on YouTube in 2011. And while the actress just recently brought attention to the changes, The A.V. Club reported in 2016 that the movie's original trailer features deleted scenes from Bring It On that included more training sessions with the Clovers squad and a love interest for Union's character.
In interviews, Union has usually praised Bring It On, one of her breakout roles, and has even paid tribute to her character with daughter Kaavia James.
Despite having some of her scenes not included in the film, the actress did have a say in how Isis was ultimately portrayed onscreen. In 2020, she told Vogue she thought her character was initially written "like a bad stereotype."
"There was a line in the original script that was like, 'Meow! Me-gonna-ow you! My nails are long, sharp, and ready to slash!'...Huh? And that girl ends up at U.C. Berkeley? How did girls from Compton talk in their minds? How about we make her a very clear leader where her path to cheer justice is done with more class and dignity but also justifiable anger. She doesn't need to speak in made-up, Blaxploitation dialogue."
Union told the magazine that she and director Peyton Reed ended up rewriting her character's lines.
"I knew what it would have taken for Isis to get into U.C. Berkeley," she said. "Knowing that that's where she ended up, I just sort of worked backwards in creating a very strong, intelligent leader who was also justifiably f--king angry."
Check out behind-the-scenes secrets about Bring It On: