Rachel Zegler has landed herself in hot water again after claiming that she rarely saw Latina women in the spotlight when she was growing up and therefore lacked role models who looked like her.
The actress, 24, opened up about beauty standards in Hollywood during a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK.
Zegler, who is Colombian-American, was born to a Colombian mother and a Polish-American father – and claimed she found it hard as a youngster as she had no one to look up to.
‘When I was younger, my approach to beauty was a lot more shaped by what I was witnessing in big pieces of media,’ she told the outlet.
‘So, it was who was on magazine covers, who was in the beauty commercials, who was in movies, and who was considered, like, the most beautiful movie star at the time,’ she continued.
She described Hollywood when she was growing up as very ‘Eurocentric.’
‘Being a young Latina, that was hard because not a lot of people looked the way that I did. They didn’t have bushy eyebrows like I did. They didn’t have dark eyes like I did,’ the West Side Story star explained.
However, the young star’s comments have been slammed by social media users, who accused Zegler of being tone deaf and not acknowledging the Latina actors and singers who have come before her.
Rachel Zegler has landed herself in hot water again after claiming that she rarely saw Latina women in the spotlight when she was growing up and therefore lacked role models who looked like her
‘The fact that I could find pics of these Latina actresses and singers off the top of my head – but Zegler can’t even acknowledge that they paved the way for her is pretty despicable,’ one X, formerly Twitter, user criticized.
‘WOKE ALERT! Rachel Zegler, the millionaire Hollywood princess playing Snow White, whines that growing up was “so hard” because no Latina stars “looked like her,”‘ snarked another.
They continued: ‘Poor baby! What about JLo, Salma Hayek or Sofia Vergara? They weren’t “Latina enough” for her highness?’
‘I didn’t realize Rachel was 75 years old. I’m sure it was difficult growing up in the 50s,’ another sarcastically wrote.
Echoing this public sentiment in an opinion piece for the Daily Caller, writer Natalie Sandova, declared the actress to be ‘whiny,’ listing other Latina actresses who have had long and successful careers in Hollywood.
‘If Zegler were an 80-year-old, her complaint might have some basis in reality. But Zegler was born in 2001,’ she wrote in the piece published on March 16.
‘There have been plenty of Latinas in “big pieces of media” in the past thirty years: Sofía Vergara, Zoe Saldaña, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, Victoria Justice, Selena Gomez, Morena Baccarin, Salma Hayek, Michelle Rodriguez, Selena Quintanilla, Rosie Perez and Shakira.’
Elsewhere in the Harper’s Bazaar interview, Zegler also addressed the backlash she faced after being cast as Snow White in Disney’s 2025 box office bomb.
The actress, 24, opened up about beauty standards in Hollywood
Daily Caller writer Natalie Sandova slammed the actress, pointing out Jennifer Lopez and Sofia Vergara (pictured) are also successful Latina actresses
The film was marred in controversy due to Zegler’s eyebrow-raising comments and immense backlash over the ‘woke’ changes it made. The movie ended up earning dismal numbers at the box office and was widely panned by critics.
The young actress branded the film’s controversy a very ‘confusing time,’ saying she had grown up proud of her Colombian-Polish heritage before trolls claimed her skin was not the right color to play the fictional fairytale princess.
She told the publication that she’d not only faced trolling for being too Latina for Snow White, but also threats to her safety, after being branded not Latina enough for her role as María in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story in 2021.
‘I was told I wasn’t enough of one thing for West Side Story and too much of another for Snow White. It was a really confusing time to be in my early twenties and hearing that’.
‘I grew up proud of being Colombian – eating the food, wearing the dresses, drinking the coffee, doing all the things that were so intrinsic to who I was as a kid and who I am as an adult – but I do think there’s an argument to be made that.’
The star also faced intense criticism throughout the film’s release over a speculative feud with her co-star Gal Gadot.
The rumored rift was reportedly over their opposing views on the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gadot is notably from Israel.
