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This Snow White won’t be seeing the most magical place on earth any longer.
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Certain rules and regulations must be followed by cast members who work at Walt Disney World Resort or any of the Disney parks. Failure to follow those rules could result in reprimand or, at worst, firing from The Walt Disney Company.
Some of the employees who have stricter policies to adhere to are the performers at the theme park. While we may all want to believe that the Mickey Mouse waving to us in Festival of Fantasy is real and that Rapunzel in Princess Fairytale Hall came down to the Magic Kingdom to say hi to all of us for the day, we know that each of our favorite Disney characters who are brought to life are actually character performers at the theme park.
Credit: Disney
Disney has strict rules surrounding character integrity, which is why they have rules for guests visiting the park not to be allowed to dress in a full costume as well as not to impersonate any of the Disney characters (failure to comply with these rules will have you rejected at the gates, or banned from the parks for life).
These ideals of character integrity surround their cast members as well. Cast members who play a character at the parks cannot outwardly share that they are that character online, especially not on social media. Common verbiage used by those cast members who are performers at the park states that they are “friends” with a certain character, which indicates that they are playing that character without saying it and ruining the magic.
Credit: Inside the Magic
Much like the guest rules, failure to comply to this will have you terminated from the park, and Disney certainly takes this rule very seriously.
One character performer, Sophia Dottir, recently shared a video on her YouTube channel titled, “What The He!! Happened (Being Fired From WDW)✨🏰ep.2”
If we take a look at Sophia’s social media, as well as listen to this video, we can likely guess that she played both Anna from Frozen, and Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Disney parks; however, she was fired from her position after a short investigation done by the company.
Sophia outlined exactly what happened to her during her firing, which had to do with the YouTube video she uploaded prior to this one.
Related: Rachel Zegler Replaces Failing ‘Snow White’ Role With New Character
Below, you can watch the video in which Disney seemed to have an issue with. In the video, Sophia, who was doing the Disney College Program, certainly does not paint character life with rose gold glasses on to her viewers, but she does have a lot to say about the company and her job. One particularly shocking moment is when she received a reprimand from the company for being sick, even after having gone to urgent care and coming back with a doctor’s note, which was apparently not good enough for Disney to excuse her from her shift without issue.
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She mentions the good and the bad without ever explicitly saying who she performs as in order to maintain character integrity but leaves some strong hints.
In the video, Sophia recalls how she once visited Akershus Royal Banquet Hall as a child dressed as Snow White, which was a true full circle moment for her, as she recently had a shift at the EPCOT location, inferring she was playing Snow White. In the video, Sophia said there are photos of her as Snow White on her Instagram, which technically violates character integrity.
Disney caught wind of the video, and that is how their investigation began. Sophia noted that she was referring to the photo of her as a child dressed as Snow White at Akershus.
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Since there were photos on her Instagram of her working as Snow White, too, it seems Disney decided to use her as an example of what not to do.
Related: Rachel Zegler Eliminates “Woke” ‘Snow White’, Reveals Beloved Update
After a short investigation, Disney still decided to terminate Sophia and asked her to vacate her apartment, which was the Disney College Program housing at Flamingo Crossing, within 24 hours.
From this, we can see that Disney takes its rules and regulations just as seriously with its cast members as it does with its guests. While Sophia’s termination certainly has a lot of grey areas within it, Disney is allowed to make these calls if they feel it is the best thing to do for the business moving forward, so that is always a good thing to keep in mind if you are ever thinking of walking into the Disney parks to break a dress code rule or start a fight.
It may not be worth never being allowed to visit the most magical place on earth again.
Did you know that Disney had these rules in place for cast members?
This post originally appeared on Inside the Magic.
