Rachel Zegler's Snow White Casting Backlash Was Worse Than You Think

Disney's long-gestating live-action "Snow White" remake is better than expected but still pretty dopey. It was also marred by budget issues, controversy, and the fact that the film simply never had the same draw as other live-action re-imaginings of Disney animated features. As such, it's not particularly shocking that "Snow White" bombed at the box office.

Though multiple behind-the-scenes aspects contributed to the high-profile failure of "Snow White," the one person who had to take far more than her share of criticism is star Rachel Zegler — who, it should be noted, is the best part of the movie and does a good job throughout it. Ever since her casting was announced, Zegler was targeted by toxic Disney fans, and things got a lot more complicated as time passed. Zegler has now addressed the racist casting backlash and how it made her feel in an interview with Cosmopolitan ... and it seems like she had an even harder time than one might have guessed:

"For being brown. For having brown skin. For playing Snow White. There was a lot of harassment from a certain group of people — they were showing up at my apartment and screaming profanities. Where I wanted to, in a way that made it seem like it was tongue in cheek. Then it got to a point where it was not funny anymore and I really hated myself for something that other people were telling me about myself. But my ability to bounce back from that and still be passionate about the work I did for that project is something that I admire about myself."

It's fortunate that she feels that she's been able to both survive the backlash and still stay positive about the role. After all, Zegler is innocent and the internet has been incredibly wrong about the promising actor.

The internet has certainly said a lot about her, too. The extremely overblown Rachel Zegler "Snow White" controversy has seen the public scrutinizing her casting, social media posts, and comments about the film. People have gotten on her case about things like daring to say that the original animated "Snow White" (which, you'll remember, premiered in 1937) has some outdated parts. She's also ended up in the middle of political controversies thanks to her being pro-Palestine in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (It didn't help that her co-star Gal Gadot is Israeli.)

All of this has been building up on Zegler for actual years, too. Combine the sheer amount of pressure that has been piled on her from every direction with the fact that it started when her casting as Snow White was announced in June 2021, and it's a small miracle that she's been able to bounce back as well as she says she has.