Halle Bailey ‘Sobbing Uncontrollably’ Over Black Girls’ Reaction To ‘The Little Mermaid’

Halle Bailey has sobbed “uncontrollably” because of “The Little Mermaid (2023)”. When talking about her acting career in a May cover story for Glamour magazine, the one half of the duo Chloe x Halle looked back at the time she saw young black girls reacted to her portrayal of Ariel.

“When I saw those for the first time, I just cried. I was sobbing uncontrollably,” the 23-year-old revealed in the feature published on Tuesday, May 23. Explaining the reason why, she elaborated, “The fact that these babies are looking at me and feeling the emotions that they’re feeling is a really humbling, beautiful thing.”

Halle went on to reflect on her role for the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid”. She stated, “I really hope that I put my own stamp on her character by showing more of her vulnerability. I felt like I could relate to her growing up in a big family and having older sisters to guide you, and having a father that’s very protective and overbearing at times but loves so hard.”

“[Ariel still] has red hair, because that’s a very iconic part of her, but I really did admire the fact that because I’m a Black woman and I have locs, [the producers] wanted to incorporate that into Ariel’s look,” the former “Grown-ish” star continued explaining.

Elsewhere in the interview, Halle spilled more on how she viewed Ariel from the original Disney movie. Revealing that she had loved the character since she was five years old, she recalled, “I remember Ariel being the reason I wanted to swim.”

“When I saw her, [I was] like, ‘She’s so beautiful; I want to be a mermaid too,’ ” the younger sister of Chloe Bailey continued. “She didn’t look like me, but I was okay with that because it was what I was used to at the time.”

Fortunately, Halle started to see representation of black princess in Disney’s 2009 movie “The Princess and the Frog”. She shared, “I know how much of that movie changed my whole perspective on life. Wow, this is possible. Black princesses are possible. We deserve to take up these spaces too.”