Disney Star Josh Gad Calls Out 'Pathetic' Racist Response to Halle Bailey Little Mermaid Trailer
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty for Disney;Rodin Eckenroth/Getty
Josh Gad is supporting his Disney family.
After the first trailer for Disney's live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid debuted during the 95th Academy Awards, Gad, 42, called out the ongoing racist response to Halle Bailey's casting as Ariel, which has resulted in the YouTube video being flooded with 1.2 million "dislikes" as of Saturday.
"Imagine being so broken and pathetic in life that your chief concern is the skin color of…a make-believe singing mermaid," Gad wrote Thursday on Twitter.
The first teaser for the highly anticipated update of the 1989 animated film has additionally garnered 3.5 million dislikes since it debuted in September.
The Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall previously responded to the racist backlash, which has plagued the film since Bailey's casting was announced in 2019, explaining that there was "no agenda" in choosing a Black actress.
Imagine being so broken and pathetic in life that your chief concern is the skin color of… a make-believe singing mermaid. https://t.co/7F6F8LT2b9
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) March 16, 2023
"We just were looking for the best actor for the role, period. The end," he told Entertainment Weekly in December. "We saw everybody and every ethnicity."
RELATED: The Little Mermaid Trailer Unveiled by Stars Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy During Oscars 2023
He explained their criteria was someone "incredibly strong, passionate, beautiful, smart, clever," who exudes "a great deal of fire and joy" in playing the iconic Disney princess.
Bailey told PEOPLE that landing the role has "changed my perspective on everything," explaining in September how it has "impacted my life in so many ways."
RELATED VIDEO: Why Halle Bailey Was 'Sobbing' After The Little Mermaid: 'I Had Come Out of This Cocoon with Ariel'
"The fact that now it's getting to be played by me, a person who looks like me, woman of color, I'm just like, wow, I'm so grateful what it will do for all the other little Black and brown boys and girls who will see themselves in me," said Bailey. "Because I know if I had seen myself when I was younger, I think my whole perspective would've changed."
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The Little Mermaid premieres in theaters May 26.
