'Snow White' star Rachel Zegler refused to remove pro-Palestine post despite Disney's request: Report
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The 2025 version of ‘Snow White’ was steeped deep into controversy long before its release, and not only because of its reimagining of the beloved classic.
Apart from casting controversies the Disney film had to endure in August 2024, it also landed itself in hot waters for a single tweet about Palestine posted by the movie's 23-year-old actress Rachel Zegler.
As Zegler's August 12, 2024 tweet about “free Palestine” gained momentum, Disney executives tried to control the situation by asking the ‘Shazam’ actress to delete the post. She has, however, as reported by Variety, refused to delete the post, which is still there on her X account.
Rachel Zegler refuses to delete her post on ‘Palestine’
Three days after Rachel Zegler took to the stage at Disney’s D23 fan event to release the first trailer of ‘Snow White’, the actress thanked fans for their enormous support.
The trailer for the re-telling of the beloved Disney story amassed a whopping 120 million views just within three days of its release. On August 12, 2024, Zegler thanked the fans, as she wrote on social media, “I love you all so much! thank you for the love and for 120m views on our trailer in just 24 hours! what a whirlwind.”
She continued, “I am in the thick of rehearsals for romeo + juliet so i’m gonna get outta here. bye for now. ❤️🍎🕊️.”
However, all hell broke loose just within a minute of her original post, when she made another post to the thread, writing, “and always remember, free palestine.”
The quick addendum has since then amassed more views than the original post, and at the time of writing, it boasts 10.4 million views.
As reported by the outlet, Zegler’s pithy tweet created chaos among Disney top brass, as many were left stunned that the actress would even think of making a political statement during the promotion of their $270 million film.
Concerned with the situation, a Disney executive even reportedly shared the studio’s concerns with Zegler’s team. The film’s producer, Marc Platt, flew to personally persuade the actress to take down her post.
However, Zegler, whose relationship with the studio started deteriorating as early as 2022, declined the request, and the post remains on her account to date.
In 2022, the relationship between the hundred-year-old production company and the ‘Hunger Games’ actress started souring when she criticized the 1937 version of ‘Snow White’ during her award season campaign for ‘West Side Story’.
Zegler’s post, meanwhile, posed another point of contention between the ‘Y2K’ actress and her Israeli-born co-star Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen in the movie.
As reported by Variety, as the death threats toward the mother-of-four intensified, Disney had to cough up an additional amount of money to strengthen the ‘Wonder Woman’ actress’s security.
Rachel Zegler’s relationship with co-star Gal Gadot
While the Israeli actress Gal Gadot has been vocal about her support for her motherland along with making posts in support of IDF, Zegler’s post made her stance clear - that the duo are not only differing in their ideologies on screen but also in real life.
The outlet reported that several sources even noted that the ‘Heart of Stone’ actress has even maintained a certain distance with her co-star and kept interactions to a bare minimum during joint interviews and promotions.
While the March 15 premiere of the film had the two stars maintaining a distance between them, Entertainment Tonight reported that the pair “very controlled” at the event. Nevertheless, they “kept it friendly” while posing on the red carpet.
The source revealed, “There has definitely been tension between them, and they are not close by any means.”
