It’s Time to Finally Break Down Kylie Cantrall, Malachi Barton, and Malia Baker’s Rumored Love Triangle Drama

At this point, it’s a Disney Channel rite of passage to be in the thick of a messy love triangle. Just go back to the early 2000s, when Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, and Aaron Carter/Chad Michael Murray crashed movie premieres and threw major shade on SNL. By 2008, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Nick Jonas all dropped a bunch of pointed YouTube vlogs and musical collaborations (“Send It On” being one that they’d all appear on). And, of course, we can’t forget Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and Joshua Bassett’s whole saga in 2021, which amplified each of their respective music careers beyond the House of Mouse.Now, there’s a whole new generation of Disney darlings in the crossfire, which means there’s yet another dramatic timeline to uncover. Enter: Kylie Cantrall, Malachi Barton, and Malia Baker, who starred in different DCOMs and maximized their joint slays on Descendants/Zombies: Worlds Collide Tour last summer. A lot has gone down since then, so allow us to deep-dive and explain how their alleged drama actually went down.Jump to:January 2023July 2024July 2025October 2025December 2025April 2026May 2026July 2026August 2026January 2023Descendants: The Rise of Red began filming after months of casting, development, and rehearsals. This is where Malia and Kylie really bonded and became close. According to an interview with Girls’ Life in 2024, the girls and their co-stars, Morgan Dudley and Ruby Rose Turner, would sing and make up dance routines on set.“We—the girls in the film—called each other Destiny’s Child,” Kylie said at the time. “In between takes, Ruby, Malia, Morgan and I would sing, do harmonies and put on full elaborate performances offscreen.”July 2024The girls were thick as thieves while doing press for The Rise of Red. In multiple interviews, they claimed to be each other’s best friends after bonding on set, with Kylie even referring to their chemistry read as “love at first sight.”“Malia was the last girl that I read with, ever, for Chloe. I messaged the casting director separately, and I was like, ‘She’s the one; she’s incredible,’” Kylie said during a joint interview with Entertainment Weekly at the time. And the casting director was like, ‘Oh my God, I totally agree.’ I always tell [Malia] it was love at first sight—I just knew she was the one.”July 2025The Descendants/Zombies: Worlds Collide Tour, which is where Kylie and Malia met Zombies 4 star Malachi, kicked off in July 2025. It was also around this time that fans speculated Kylie and Malachi might be an item, though they never confirmed (or denied) their relationship status.October 2025According to several theories and reports, Kylie and Malachi quietly went their separate ways after the Worlds Collide Tour wrapped.Though it hasn’t been confirmed, fans speculated that Malia and Malachi started seeing each other shortly after his split with Kylie.December 2025A few days later, fans raised eyebrows when Malia’s sister posted a photo of her and Malachi holding hands at a holiday market.Kylie reportedly unfollowed both Malachi and Malia on social media once the photos had surfaced.April 2026During an interview with Galore, Kylie teased that her EP, Valley Girl Problems, would go into great detail about her reported drama with Malia and Malachi.“I wrote this album like a diary, the lyrics are honest and vulnerable because I dug into my personal life and didn’t shy away from the messy parts (even my very public love triangle). That particular situation unraveled while in the midst of writing, so naturally there will be songs that reflect the hurt and betrayal,” she said at the time.May 2026Kylie seemingly made a nod to her friendship with Malia in the music video for her song, “Carrie Bradshaw.” In the clip, she looks out at a sign that reads “Glass Heart Forever,” which is definitely an Easter egg for her and Malia’s Descendants characters.July 2026Malia and Kylie started their press tour for Descendants: Wicked Wonderland amid their falling out. They were paired for several interviews, and let’s just say…the vibes were extremely awkward.It got to a point where Kylie couldn’t even hide her facial expressions, lol.Add Cosmopolitan as a preferred source in your Google search results.Use your Google account to add this to your settings.Later in the month, Kylie released Valley Girl Problems, which included a ballad called “Space Between” that seemingly details a situation when one of her best friends started dating her ex. The song is named after a fan-favorite track in the Descendants cinematic universe, which she performed with Malia on the very tour where they met Malachi.“You did the worst thing you could do to me / And I don’t think you really еven care that much / Now therе’s always gonna be a boy-sized space between us,” she sings on the track, where she also alleges, “your first kiss was three days from our last.” Ouch.She also dropped another song on the EP called “Girls Like U,” where she accuses the subject of giving an insincere apology and kiiinda confirms the timing of her and Malachi’s relationship by claiming they were all “on the road.”Some lyrics include: “You played in my face for fun / Then acted like you did nothing wrong, oh / Now we ain’t strangers, girl, I know you and you know me / That quote unquote apology from ChatGPT / The least you could do is take accountability, oh, oh.”During an interview on The Zach Sang Show, Kylie referred to Malia as her “former best friend” without naming names. While Malia has largely kept quiet about all the alleged drama, she reportedly commented “lol” under a reshared clip of Kylie’s Zach Sang interview.August 2026After Kylie’s songs about the whole situation gained traction online, Malia reportedly unfollowed Kylie, as well as her parents and best friends, on Instagram.It’s unclear whether Malia and Malachi are even still together at this point, but all of this ^^^ is truly getting messier by the minute.