Disney princesses stick together. The news of an upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid movie has been met as a triumph and with expected vitriol from armchair haters. However, Halle Bailey (Ariel) is getting support from another Disney princess: Rachel Zegler, the star of the upcoming live-action Snow White.
Zegler took to twitter to heap praise on Bailey, saying, “halle bailey as ariel will be The Moment forever and ever.”
The Little Mermaid teaser trailer, while divisive, still managed to cobble together more than 104 million views soon after its release, Variety reported. And Zegler isn’t the only one impressed with Bailey, either. The original Ariel voice actress from the original 1989 movie, Jodi Benson, also praised Bailey, according to People.
“So thrilled!!! So excited!!!” Benson shared on an Instagram Story. “Halle, you were absolutely amazing! I’m SO proud of you and your beautiful performance as Ariel.”
The trailer also sparked a trend on TikTok with parents showing their kids reactions to it. Bailey watched one featuring a young Black girl and said “k i just sobbed watching this thanks. She’s so sweet.”
Bailey spoke to Variety about what it means to play the famous character as well as what it’s like being only the second Black Disney princess after Tiana in The Princess and the Frog.
“I want the little girl in me and the little girls just like me who are watching to know that they’re special, and that they should be a princess in every single way. There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be. That reassurance was something that I needed.”
She also responded to some of the backlash, including the #NotMyAriel hashtag going around Twitter. She said her grandparents, who’ve lived with some sort of racism all their lives, encouraged her to remember that the role is so much bigger than the people who want to spread hate.
“It was an inspiring and beautiful thing to hear their words of encouragement, telling me, ‘You don’t understand what this is doing for us, for our community, for all the little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in you… What that would have done for me, how that would have changed my confidence, my belief in myself, everything. Things that seem so small to everyone else, it’s so big to us.”
The Little Mermaid will be released on May 26, 2023. We’ll see Zegler as Snow White sometime in 2024.
