'Snow White' actor Rachel Zegler slammed for her comments on the Disney original: 'There's a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her'

• The "Snow White" actor Rachel Zegler is under fire for her comments about the original film.

• Zegler, who plays the title character, has taken jabs at the Disney princess' prior portrayal.

• "If you hate the original this much, why would you want to make the remake?" a TikTok user said.

Rachel Zegler, who plays the title character in Disney's coming "Snow White" remake, is under fire for her comments while promoting the film.

Resurfaced interview clips show Zegler repeatedly suggesting she's not a fan of the original 1937 Disney princess film.

In a December interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zegler said she'd seen the original animated film only once before revisiting it for her new role and hadn't really enjoyed it.

"I was scared of the original version. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again. I'm being so serious," Zegler said in the interview alongside Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen.

"I watched it once, and then I went on the ride in Disney World, which was called Snow White's Scary Adventures," Zegler said. "Doesn't sound like something a little kid would like. Was terrified of it, never revisited Snow White again. I watched it for the first time in probably 16, 17 years when I was doing this film."

In an interview last September with Variety, the actor was asked what she meant when she'd said she was bringing a modern edge to the character.

"I just mean that it's no longer 1937," Zegler began. Gadot interjected that Snow White was "not going to be saved by the prince," with Zegler continuing: "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 that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true."

In another interview with Extra TV, Zegler described the prince in the original film as a stalker and, while emphasizing that a love story wasn't central to the new film, joked that her costar Andrew Burnap's scenes as Prince Charming might be cut from the film altogether.

"The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so," Zegler said in the interview. "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."

"We have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie," she continued.

Many TikTok users have slammed the "West Side Story" actor for what they perceive as a lack of appreciation for the major new role, with some also calling her out for what they see as pseudo-feminism.

In a video that's been viewed over 9.2 million times since it was posted five days ago, a TikTok user with the handle @cosywithangie criticized the idea that it's inappropriate for women to be depicted pursuing love as a primary motivation.

"Criticizing Disney princesses is not feminist," the TikToker said in a video stitched with a clip from Zegler's Variety interview. "Not every woman is a leader. Not every woman wants to be a leader. Not every woman wants or craves power, and that's OK.

"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 make you less valuable as a person or a woman."

"Thinking that a woman is any less valuable because she falls in love or because she accepts help from somebody instead of girl-bossing her way through her problems is not feminist," she said to conclude the video, which has over 1.5 million likes.

Another video, posted by a TikTok user with the handle @nuttybutter96, called Zegler out for accepting the title role in the first place.

"If you hate the original this much, why would you want to make the remake. Pls make it make sense," the TikTok user said in her caption.

"I don't think I've ever seen such a condescending, smug Disney princess ever in my life," the TikTok continued. "She made us sound like women only matter if they are hateful of love, hateful of any kind of romance, and we only exist to thrive and be a leader."

The TikTok video has been viewed over 5.1 million times and liked by almost 470,000 people since it was uploaded two days ago.

But some fans have rushed to Zegler's defense. A user on X with the handle @waitforme_II called the backlash against the actor "genuinely some of the stupidest shit" on the app.

"She made one comment about how snow white has ambitions of her own that has nothing to do with romance, and suddenly everyone decided that women being damsels in distress is feminist, actually," the X user wrote in the tweet, which has been liked 44 times.

This is not the first time the Disney remake has sparked controversy.

Some photos from the movie set appear to confirm the film is ditching the seven dwarfs, with many internet users slamming Disney for not including actors who are part of the dwarfism community in the movie.

Correction: Some of the language of this post has been updated.

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