Rachel Zegler took to Instagram to apologize for her heated reaction last week to the re-election of Donald Trump.
Disney‘s upcoming Snow White star received blowback following her original post, where she declared, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace,” and “there is a deep deep sickness in this country,” and, “another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in.”
On Thursday night, the 23-year-old actress posted a new message: “Hi everyone, I would like to sincerely apologize for the election post I shared on Instagram last week. I let me emotions get the best of me. Hatred and anger have caused us to move further and further away from peace and understanding, and I am sorry I contributed to the negative discourse. This week has been emotion for so many of us, but I firmly believe that everyone has the right to their opinion, even when it differs from my own. I am committed to contributing positively towards a better tomorrow.”
Zegler’s original comment blew up on X, where MAGA supporters slammed the West Side Story star and vowed to not watch her live-action $200 million Snow White remake, which Disney is releasing in theaters March 25. Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, setting a fine example on civil discourse, called Zegler a “pig” for her election reaction, and scolded Disney: “You’re gonna have to redo your film again, because this woman is a pig, and you fired Gina Carano for far less than this nonsense.”
Zegler previously clashed with the conservative crowd after her comments about the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs went viral last year.
“She’s not going to be dreaming about true love,” Zegler said of the new film. “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.” And was also quoted as saying, “People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s like, yeah, it is — because it needed that.” She told EW the original is “extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world.” And told Extra TV: “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. So we didn’t do that this time.”
Snow White was originally scheduled to debut in theaters this year, but was pushed back amid the SAG-AFTRA strike, and also to accommodate some apparent changes to the film — including re-doing the Seven Dwarfs to be more like the original. Snow White also stars Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, Ansu Kabia as the Huntsman and Martin Klebba as Grumpy.