Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful' only made it into 'Mean Girls' because the songwriter liked that Damian was gay

• "Mean Girls" star Daniel Franzese told Insider about how his character ended up singing "Beautiful."
• The Christina Aguilera track almost didn't make it into Damian's winter talent show performance.
• "Linda Perry, the writer of the song, agreed to let me sing it because she's queer," Franzese said.

"Mean Girls" star Daniel Franzese revealed that he almost didn't end up singing Christina Aguilera's Grammy-winning track "Beautiful" but the songwriter, Linda Perry, agreed because his character was gay.

"They almost weren't going to let me sing it," Franzese, who starred as Damian, told Insider during an interview for the hit film's 17th anniversary. "They weren't going to give us a release for the song."

Damian, who had some of the 2004 movie's most iconic lines, performed "Beautiful" during North Shore High School's winter talent show. Franzese said that at the time of production, there were a few backup song choices in case they weren't given the rights to use Aguilera's track.

"They had a whole list of other songs for me to choose from, in which I chose either 'Out Here on My Own,' the Irene Cara song from 'Fame,' or I was going to sing 'One Moment in Time' by Whitney Houston," Franzese said.

"But because my character was gay, Linda Perry, the writer of the song, agreed to let me sing it because she's queer," he said.

The 42-year-old actor said that getting to film the musical moment was his "favorite day" because his mom flew in from Florida.

She and Lizzy Caplan, who played Damian's best friend named Janis, "stayed up all night and made pepperoni Stromboli bread for the whole cast and crew."

But Franzese's mom ended up being the only person in the audience during the first day of shooting because, unbeknownst to them, filming was split into two days: one focused on Damian performing on stage and another day dedicated to filming the audience's reaction.

Franzese said the script for "Mean Girls" was already filled with so much humor, but he suggested a few lines throughout.

One was Damian telling Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey) "don't look at me" as she played the piano during his rendition of "Beautiful." The line was inspired by Aguilera saying the same phrase on the recording of the track.

Elsewhere in the film, Franzese suggested other ideas to incorporate into his character.

He came up with Damian's line, "I want my pink shirt back," which was a callback to Damian lending Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) a pink polo so she could match with the Plastics.

Franzese originally wanted to say, "I want my pink shirt back, b----." But to avoid the expletive and preserve the comedic tone, director Mark Waters suggested the actor say it twice like George Costanza from "Seinfeld" in an angry tone.

"After a while, they started trusting me," Franzese said. "Now everybody uses digital, but when you're using film and it's a studio film back in the day, every minute costs so much money. So it was really awesome for them to give you that kind of freedom."