Once upon a time there lived an actress named Rachel Zegler who was plagued by scandal after scandal – without having ever done anything wrong.
You see, the thing with Zegler is that her talent is often outshone by the comments of her co-stars, and in recent times she’s even received backlash for comments of her own (as unproblematic as they were).
The 23-year-old star is set to appear as the title character in Disney‘s upcoming live action remake of Snow White, but the film has once again had its fair share of… misunderstandings.
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Zegler came under fire after a 2022 interview with ExtraTV where she described the original film as “dated” but it’s the alleged beef between her and co-star Gal Gadot that has fans really talking.
While the supposed feud has never been confirmed by either star, they did recently present an award together for the Oscars without even so much as sharing a glance with each other – something social media sleuths were all to quick to point out.
So, how did Zegler find herself at the centre of so many controversies four years into her Hollywood career?
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How Rachel Zegler became famous at such a young age
Rachel Zegler was born on May 3, 2001, to parents Gina and Craig.
She grew up in New Jersey, where she says the skyline of New York City was just out of reach.
After attending a Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast when she was four years old, Zegler knew that she would one day call that skyline home.
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“I grew up with the New York City skyline visible from my parents’ bedroom in Clifton, New Jersey. It was the coolest thing to be just out of reach for me,” she said during her speech at Variety‘s The New York Party in late 2024.
Watch the video above.
At 12 years old, Zegler scored her first role in a community production of Fiddler on the Roof, and from there, she went on to star in several musicals throughout high school.
”My sister was always the singer of the two of us, so I kind of shied away from it. I was interested in other things, like fashion, but when I started performing, people started paying attention,” Zegler told Wonderland.
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When she was 14, Zegler performed in a production of Les Misérables, deciding to post a recording of her singing to YouTube simple because she “thought it was good”.
“For some reason, people began to subscribe and I gained a huge following,” she shared.
“It made me think that I might have something special to share with the world.”
When she was 16 years old, a friend of Zegler’s told her about an open casting call she’d seen on Twitter (now X).
Steven Spielberg was looking for the stars of his upcoming movie-musical, West Side Story.
”I really believed in my talent very early on, and probably in a psychotic way, to the point where I was, ‘Yeah, I’m in an audition for a Spielberg movie; maybe then I won’t go to college.’ That was the idea I had,” she told Elle.
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After almost a year of auditioning, Zegler was plucked from the pool of more than 30,000 to take on the lead role of Maria in the film.
She went on to score a nomination at the Critics Choice Awards for her performance, and even won the award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes – though she notably was excluded from the 2022 Oscars invite list despite being the nominated film’s lead.
From there, she had a role in 2023 superhero film Shazam! Fury of the Gods before skyrocketing to a new level of fame as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and scoring her first role in Broadway as the lead in the musical adaption of Romeo + Juliet.
The controversies that have plagued Rachel Zegler’s career
Rachel Zegler was praised by fans and critics alike for her breakout performance in West Side Story, with the movie overall being largely well-received.
But nine months after she skyrocketed to fame, Zegler found herself plagued by her first Hollywood scandal, a trend that would follow her for years to come.
In 2020, Ansel Elgort, Zegler’s co-star and love interest in the film, faced allegations of sexual assault, which he denied in an Instagram post.
The discourse around the movie quickly shifted from Zegler being a teen prodigy to Elgort’s controversy.
As we see far too often in Hollywood, the onus was placed on Zegler to comment on her male co-star’s alleged actions, rather than Elgort himself.
Zegler told Elle that during the press tour she found herself being the one bombarded with questions on the topic “even though the person in question was present”.
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“It was a real gut punch, honestly,” said Zegler.
“We were in the middle of the first wave of lockdown, and there was nothing to do but doom-scroll. Those days were some of the worst mental health days I’ve ever had.
“I was sitting there having just turned 19, on the precipice of what was promised to be the biggest moment in my life, and was being held accountable [by the public] for accusations that not only had nothing to do with me but were made about a situation that was said to have occurred [five] years prior to when I had met and worked with this person.”
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“With no thought to the fact that I was also 17 when I met this person, 17 when I worked with them, 17 and 18 when I had to do love scenes,” she continued.
She shared that there’s an “inherent discomfort” in the fact that actors who are women are far too often expected to answer for the alleged actions of their adult male co-stars who can “speak for themselves”.
Regardless, fans were quick to jump to conclusions on social media regarding everything Zegler did or didn’t say about the denied accusations against Elgort, and the Hollywood crucification of Zegler officially began.
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Her next role was as Anthea in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, where she found herself once again answering for the actions of her co-star, this time Tangled‘s Zachary Levi.
Levi has come under fire for anti-vax comments, with fans also criticising him for his support of Donald Trump.
Following the release of the film, he was criticised once again, this time for comments accusing DC Studios CEO James Gunn of being a nepotist because of his frequent casting of brother Sean Gunn.
Levi’s comments saw not just himself along with the cast of the film criticised for being “ungrateful” but the film itself also being slammed.
Eventually the criticism became too much for Zegler, and she took to X (formerly) Twitter to defend herself and the movie she’d put so much effort into making.
”Some people out there and just being… senselessly mean. and it’s unnecessary. and i know, i know, ‘if you can’t handle the heat…’ and all that nonsense, and you’re right,” she wrote.
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“But our film is actually very good. it’s just cool to hate on fun nowadays. that’s [OK]. we’re good,” she wrote.
And it seemed that speaking up for herself was one of the worst moves Zegler could have made in terms of public opinion, because there’s nothing the internet loves more than to crucify a women who knows her own worth and talent.
She then skyrocketed to a new level of fame with her role as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
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The project was relatively scandal-free, she appeared alongside her partner and West Side Story co-star Josh Andrés Rivera, as well as starring opposite heartthrob Tom Blythe.
But while it seemed that Zegler may have escaped scandal, she soon found herself in her biggest one yet.
The actress was announced as the lead in Snow White before The Hunger Games prequel was released, so when a troll left a comment on Blythe’s Instagram reading, ”Can you deliver a message for me? Tell @rachelzegler that Snow White is going to suck,” her co-star jumped to her defence.
“Can you do me a favour and get a f—ing life?” he responded.
From the minute Zegler was cast in the role, it seemed that she couldn’t do anything right.
Zegler’s ethnicity was the first issue fans found with her casting, with many saying that the half-Colombian half-Polish actress couldn’t possibly be the right fit for the role.
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Many took issue with a woman of colour playing the role of a character traditionally depicted as white, something The Little Mermaid‘s Halle Bailey also faced.
But despite surely being worn down by the constant criticism, Zegler took the high road handling the backlash with grace.
”She was my mum’s favourite princess,” Zegler told Variety of Snow White. “When she was growing up, there weren’t a lot of dark-haired princesses, and that was the one she could relate to.”
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In a chat with Andrew Garfield for the same publication, she said that she “never in a million years” though she would have the opportunity to play the Disney princess.
“Even though Snow White is really a big deal in Spanish-speaking countries… you don’t particularly see people who look like me or are me playing roles like that,” she said.
“When it was announced, it was a huge thing that was trending on Twitter [now X] for days, because all of the people were angry.”
When the dust had finally settled on the news of her casting, Zegler found herself in hot water once again after her interview with ExtraTV at the 2022 D23 Expo saw her deemed a “walking PR disaster for Disney” by internet trolls.
Basically, Zegler explained the live-action remake would see the story of Snow White reimagined for a modern audience, saying that the original is “very evidently” made in the 1930s.
She said that the new version is “not really about the love story at all” describing the prince as “a guy who literally stalks her”.
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Zegler was slammed as ungrateful by Disney fans angry she’d even been given the role in the first place.
Then, finally, there’s the rumours of a feud between Zegler and Gadot, who plays the evil queen in the upcoming film.
We don’t know much about what has gone on between the two aside from a seemingly pointed social media comment here and there, and while the rumours could have easily fizzled out, the Oscars instead reignited them.
The duo were paired together to present an award and while most presenters seemingly have some kind of rapport with one another, Zegler and Gadot didn’t even share so much as a glance.
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The two made sure to keep their distance on stage, barely standing next to one another, and neither looked particularly pleased to be there, according to social media sleuths.
Gadot has also had her fair share of controversy, so it’s possible that this time round Zegler is simply keeping her distance to try and avoid the same situation she’s found herself in time and time again.
But if there’s one thing that Zegler’s story proves, it’s that Hollywood loves nothing more than jumping at the opportunity to tear down a woman at the top of her game.
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