Disney's Snow White actress went from Hollywood's next big thing to most scandal

Rachel Zegler is set to star as Snow White in the upcoming live action remake of the Disney classic, but the actress has sparked major controversy in the lead up to the Hollywood blockbuster

The star of Disney’s upcoming live action remake of Snow White has caused a backlash after blasting the original film – and making comments about other movies she has been in.

Rachel Zegler shot to fame after beating 30,000 others to land the lead role of Maria in the Oscar-winning 2022 version of West Side Story. This led to the 22-year-old being touted as Hollywood’s newest darling.

However, the tides have started to turn against the young actress following a huge backlash this week after resurfaced comments she made about the upcoming Snow White film, scheduled for released in 2024, went viral on social media.

While promoting the movie at industry events in the US, Rachel confessed to being “scared” of the original Snow White and slammed the “creepy” and “weird” prince “who literally stalks” her character in the film.

Sharing that isn’t what the narrative would play out like in the new version, the starlet told Extra TV: “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird! So we didn’t do that this time.”

In a separate red carpet interview with Variety, Rachel said she would be bringing a “modern edge” to the role and explained: “It’s no longer 1937 and she’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.

“She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”

But the comments, made in 2022, have begun popping up on TikTok videos which have accused Rachel of “hating” Snow White and being “anti-feminist”. The son of the original film’s director even claimed his father and Walt Disney would be “turning in their graves” at the remake.

In one clip, which has raked up 10 million views, one social media wrote: “It is not anti-feminist to want to fall in love, to want to get married, to want to stay at home, to be soft, to want to be a homemaker. None of these things makes you less valuable as a person.”

Another viral clip slams Rachel for accepting the lead role in the Snow White remake “if you hate the original so much”. While a third said: “Criticising Disney princesses is not feminist. Not every woman is a leader. Not every woman wants to be a leader. Thinking that a woman is any less valuable because she falls in love or accepts help from somebody instead of girl-bossing her way through her problems is not feminist.”

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And Snow White isn’t the only film Rachel has managed to land herself in hot water over – as she told The Hollywood Reporter at the premiere of 2023 movie Shazam! Fury of the Gods she only made the movie as she “needed a job” at the time as filming was around the pandemic and West Side Story had yet to come out.

The film later bombed at the box office and got a rating of just 49 per cent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes – and no doubt movie execs will be hoping her comments about the upcoming Snow White movie won’t affect its performance at the box office when it is finally released.

PR expert Nick Ede told MailOnline that perhaps Rachel “isn’t the best person to promote the film” despite playing the main character because she has “actively chosen to spoil the narrative”.

The Mirror has reached out to Rachel’s reps for further comment on this story.

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