ALalaine was not in the last 6 episodes filmed. The only instance of her addressing this publicly is in an article, "Moving to her own music, Lalaine leaves 'Lizzie' behind", in the Chicago Tribune, September 20, 2005, in the KidNews column. The article can be accessed here - http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-09-20/features/0509200325_1_lizzie-mcguire-fan-miranda. Here is what she said:Why did you leave "Lizzie McGuire" before the show actually ended?"I wasn't in the last four or five episodes. I had this other thing to do, and I chose to do that. I felt that it was time for me to go my separate way. I felt it wouldn't be that horrible if I left."The following was on TV Tome's Lizzie McGuire page in January 2003 (I checked on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine). The first paragraph of this was on the site as early as August 2002:Did Lalaine (Miranda) leave the show?There was a lot of talk about this recently, and without indulging in too much speculation or gossip, the bottom line is that Lalaine will not appear in a few episodes of Lizzie. Apparently she had some personal reasons for wanting some time off, and Disney agreed to let her have it. This may not be the whole story, but that's all we're saying here. Lizzie didn't have many more shows left to film when this happened, so she won't be missing from too many episodes.Whatever the real story is behind Lalaine's leaving the show, there are a couple of things we can be certain of: she did not leave simply to work on the Disney TV-movie You Wish. Disney surely could have scheduled things so that one of the main stars of their most popular TV series would not have to miss the final episodes of that series, including its finale. Also, Lalaine did not leave Lizzie so she could film her guest appearances as Chloe, the slayer-in-training on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. By the time those were filmed, Lizzie had long since wrapped up production. But we won't repeat any of the rumors we've heard on the subject until we find out something more solid.
