Disney insiders threw Snow White star Rachel Zegler under the bus this week, essentially blaming the star’s penchant for speaking her mind for the film’s lackluster box office performance. Now, the son of Snow White producer Marc Platt has joined in to throw a few more stones, calling Zegler a “narcissist” who shouldn’t be “coddled.”
Platt’s son Jonah, 38, an occasional actor who hosts the weekly podcast Being Jewish, was responding to rising criticism of his father stemming from a new report in Variety. The story quotes a Disney insider as saying Zegler “didn’t understand the repercussions of her actions” in the lead up to Snow White’s premiere, as she publicly supported Palestine and declared her aversion to Donald Trump via social media. One attempt to get Zegler to remove the posts included sending Marc Platt to persuade her—to no avail.
In the wake of those controversies and several others, the film was a box office disappointment in its opening weekend, making a lower than expected $43 million on a more than $250 million budget.
In a now deleted reply to a critique of his dad for “reprimanding a young actress” and being “creepy,” Platt came to his father’s defense. “You really wanna do this?” he began his contentious response.
“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,” Platt wrote, “for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do publicity for.”
Marc Platt’s other son Ben Platt, of Pitch Perfect and Dear Evan Hansen fame, is 31. His wife, Julie Platt, has been the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America since 2022.
“Her actions clearly hurt the film’s box office,” Platt whined of Zegler, preaching about “adult responsibility and accountability” in his lengthy reply. “Free speech does not mean you’re allowed to say whatever you want in your private employment without repercussions.”
By sharing her opinion on the Israel-Gaza War, Zegler “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,” Platt also wrote. Her posts were rooted in “narcissism,” he deduced, which “is not something to be coddled or encouraged.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives for both Jonah Platt and Rachel Zegler for comment.
The Variety piece has received harsh backlash from social media users who are resolved that Zegler deserves props for standing her ground amid pressure from Hollywood heavyweights like Disney and Platt. And some have likened the finger-pointing by Disney to the firing of former Scream star Melissa Barrera, who was axed from that franchise for speaking out in support of Palestine.
Barrera expressed her support for Zegler on Wednesday by resharing a post calling Variety‘s report a “hit piece” and the Snow White star “cool as hell.”
