‘Snow White’ producer’s son slams 'immature' Rachel Zegler
'Her actions clearly hurt the film’s box office'
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The son of Snow White producer Marc Platt has slammed Rachel Zegler, accusing the actress of torpedoing the film at the box office after she got political on social media.
According to a Variety report, Platt was dispatched to meet with Zegler, 23, to try and convince the film’s titular star to delete a post on X in which she thanked fans for watching the Snow White trailer and ended her message with, “and always remember, free Palestine.”
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The trade also reported that Platt had to meet with Zegler again after she weighed in on the results of the U.S. election, writing: “F*** Donald Trump” and “May Trump supporters … never know peace.”
In a now-deleted message of his own, Jonah Platt, who hosts the podcast Being Jewish and has acted in episodes of Uncoupled, responded to Instagram user @brynnd13, who called his dad’s actions “creepy as hell and uncalled for.”
“Your dad flew to NYC to reprimand a young actress? Any words on this? Cuz that’s creepy as hell and uncalled for,” the commenter wrote, under a post promoting an upcoming appearance by Tiffany Haddish on the Being Jewish podcast. “People have the right to free speech, no? Shame on your father.”
In a since-deleted reply, Jonah fired back, telling the commenter that Zegler’s comments “clearly hurt the film’s box office.”
“Yeah, my dad, the producer of enormous piece of Disney IP with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, had to leave his family to to fly across the country to reprimand his 20-year-old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do publicity for,” Jonah Platt responded (per Newsweek). “This is called adult responsibility and accountability. And her actions clearly hurt the film’s box office.”
Platt continued his scathing rant, writing: “Free speech does not meant you’re allowed to say whatever you want in your private employment without repercussions. Tens of thousands of people worked on that film and she hijacked the conversation for her own immature desires at the risk of all the colleagues and crew and blue collar workers who depend on that movie to be successful. Narcissism is not something to be coddled or encouraged.”
During an appearance on his son’s Being Jewish podcast, Platt weighed in on actors from films he was working on making pro-Palestine statements.
“No decent human being wants any suffering in humanity from decent people,” Platt said. “What happens in instances is individuals ascribe their names to something, where they are not being completely informed, and the messaging to them is, ‘There is suffering here. We have to speak out for suffering.’ The message doesn’t include, ‘There is also suffering over here.’ Or, ‘There is suffering that was prompted, or instigated, by an act of terror, or an act of evil.’ Or, ‘There is a terrorist group in place that wishes for the annihilation of a whole group of people.’ That gets left out of the conversation. So my way of dealing with it is — when the moment is right — to have that conversation, where it can be heard and not in the midst of anger. And I feel good about those conversations that I’ve been having.”
After being hit by years of controversy, the Marc Webb-directed remake of the 1937 animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened in theatres last weekend with a disappointing $43 million in ticket sales.
With a budget rumoured to be north of $250 million, it now faces a daunting uphill battled to profitability.
But the film’s rocky road to the big screen started in 2022, when fans picked apart remarks Zegler made about her reimagining of the character.
“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,” Zegler told Extra TV in a viral red carpet interview.
“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. “It’s one of those things that I think everyone is going to have their assumptions about what it’s going to be. But it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful. Whether or not she finds love along the way is anybody’s guess.”
In a separate interview with Vanity Fair, the Golden Globe winner doubled down on her stance. “People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s like, yeah, it is — because it needed that.”
On X, some followers accused Zegler of meddling too much with the original.
“She is just too passionate about how horrible a classic is. It’s a classic for a reason. It provides us with realities and the beliefs of the particular moment in time it represents,” one person wrote, with another adding, “I think I she intended to audition for Grumpy and went through the wrong door.”
The reboot sparked further backlash after it was revealed by the Daily Mail that the Seven Dwarfs were set to be replaced by seven “magical (non-dwarf) creatures” in an effort to make the film more politically correct.
Zegler’s response to Trump’s victory last year made her a target again and she was forced to apologize to the president’s supporters.
“There’s something wrong with this person,” conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly said after Zegler’s “F— Trump” post last November. “Hello, Disney, you’re going to have to redo your film again, because this woman is a pig, and you fired Gina Carano for far less than this nonsense … I’m sorry, Disney, she has to go right now.”
But the pile-on wasn’t only directed at Zegler. According to Variety’s report from earlier this week, her co-star Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen in the movie and is Jewish, faced death threats, forcing Disney to pay for additional security for the mother of four.
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