Black folks aren’t the only ones tired from the racist attacks being aimed at Halle Bailey. The Little Mermaid star has been subjected to disgusting bigotry since it was announced back in 2019 that she would portray the princess. Now, her co-star from the film has spoken out about the unwarranted backlash.
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Josh Gad, who also appears in The Little Mermaid, shared his thoughts about the trolls who just won’t leave Bailey alone. The movie’s latest trailer, which is on YouTube, received for 600,000 dislikes. The teaser trailer received over 3 million dislikes since premiering in September.
The Twitter account @CalltoActivism shared:
“The YouTube trailer of The Little Mermaid is currently being mass “disliked” on Youtube by MAGA racists. The teaser trailer has generated over 3 million dislikes, and the new trailer has over 600,000. The important thing about the controversy surrounding Halle Bailey’s casting is that we remember a beautiful and talented actress won the role. We can’t allow racism to ever be normalized.”
In response, Gad tweeted: “Imagine being so broken and pathetic in life that your chief concern is the skin color of… a make-believe singing mermaid.” Earlier this year in a cover interview with The Face, Bailey explained how she’s learned to tune out all the hate.
“As a Black person, you just expect it and it’s not really a shock anymore,” she said. ”When [Chlöe and I] first signed to Parkwood, [Beyoncé] was always like: ‘I never read my comments. Don’t ever read the comments.’ Honestly, when the teaser came out, I was at the D23 Expo and I was so happy. I didn’t see any of the negativity.”
Bailey added: “I know people are like: ’It’s not about race.’ But now that I’m her…People don’t understand that when you’re Black there’s this whole other community. It’s so important for us to see ourselves.”
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