"I did not do any research" - Rachel Zegler's West Side Story costar Ariana DeBose deletes post quoting her criticism

Rachel Zegler's West Side Story costar Ariana DeBose offers clarification on her Instagram story on April 1 after directly quoting recent criticism of Zegler.

Ariana noted,

"I post quotes all the time and thought this one was meaningful. Will fully cop to the fact that I did not do any research on where this quote came from, nor did I know of the connection until it was pointed out to me."

She then added that she has no intention of being a part of a "news cycle,"

"I have no intention of inserting myself into a news cycle. THis is not the first time I've posted about dealing with narcissism and it probably won't be the last, but next time I'll be sure to clarify it's origins first."

This comes after Ariana shared a quote by Snow White director Marc Platt's son Jonah Platt, who in a since-deleted post, blamed the poor box office performance of Disney's remake of Snow White on Rachel Zegler.

Snow White debuted to $42.2 million during its opening weekend, despite having a $250 million budget.

---

What quote did Ariana DeBose shared in criticism of Rachel Zegler

Jonah Platt had commented on an Instagram post for his Being Jewish podcast, where a social media user complained of a Variety report which alleged that his father, Marc Platt "flew to New York to speak directly" with Zegler for backlash over her expressing pro-Palestinian views online,

"You really want to do this? Yeah, my dad, the producer of enormous piece of Disney IP with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, had to leave his family to fly across the country to reprimand his 20 year old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do pubicity for."

He then alleged that Zegler's actions "clearly hurt the film's box office." He ended his rant by making comments on narcissism, which Ariana reposted as a quote,

"Narcissism is not something to be coddled or encouraged"

The post was taken down shortly after, and DeBose shared a statement.

Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBosed starred alongside each other in director Steven Spielberg's 2021 adaptation of West Side Story. While Zegler played the role of Maria, Ariana played Anita, a role which earned her an Oscar.

Disney's adaptation of Snow White has been in the middle of several controversies. While netizens have expressed disappointment in casting Zegler in the role of Snow White, Rachel Zegler and co-star Gal Gadot's contrasting views on the Israel-Palestine conflict have also raised eyebrows.