Avantika Hasn’t Actually Been Cast As Rapunzel In A Live-Action “Tangled” Movie, But She Is Still Being Bombarded With Racist Comments

Similarly to when Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Rachel Zegler as Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, much of the backlash toward 19-year-old Avantika portraying the princess appears to be rooted in racism.

In one TikTok, which went viral on X, a white woman filmed herself crying alongside the caption: “me pretending the little girl in me isn’t so upset by the live action repunzel [sic] casting.”

“Unpopular opinion rapunzel is a blonde white girl,” another TikToker posted, adding in the caption: “sorry but a brown girl with long black hair is NOT rapunzel.”

Others responded by sarcastically suggesting white actors who could play Black Disney princess Tiana in a live-action adaptation of The Princess and the Frog.

In addition, Mean Girls star Avantika’s Instagram posts have been flooded with nasty comments from people insisting that she will never be their Rapunzel. 

The X user, who has less than 2,000 followers at the time of writing, wrote in a now-deleted tweet: “Sources say Avantika and Milo Manheim have been screen testing as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider for the Tangled Live-Action.”

This was followed by fan cast videos being posted to TikTok, with a popular recent upload simply showing photos of Avantika alongside screenshots of the Disney princess, and Avan Jogia next to pictures of Flynn.

“Hear me out, a tangled live action set in India,” they captioned the video. While it racked up more than 100k likes, it also attracted negative comments from people criticizing the decision to cast Avantika as Rapunzel.

“Fyi never wanted avantika to be set up, i really liked the fan cast so i took the opportunity and mixed it with milo (since at that time i was still a stan),” they added.