When I went to Disneyland for the 70th anniversary of the park, I bought a hoodie that includes a quote from Walt Disney. It says, “Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.” This includes all the best rides at the park and all of the amazing Cast Members who make magic for guests every day. Many people dream of being part of the magic at Disneyland. Unfortunately, sometimes that magic goes away, and that was recently the case for one Cast Member.
One of the more popular characters at Disneyland that had a tendency to go viral on social media was the Evil Queen from Snow White. She had some incredible “Diva” energy that led to many iconic interactions with guests in the park. However, one recent video of the queen that went viral may have played a part in the Cast Member losing their job.
Last Halloween, a video of the Evil Queen, in which the Queen strongly indicated that she would be leaving the park after the spooky season, went viral. Fans who loved the character spoke out, but not only did the Queen, in fact, disappear, but the performer in the video lost her job as well:
In time, People spoke with the former Cast Member, Sabrina Von B. While the interview, somewhat strangely, doesn’t take on Von B’s leaving Disneyland directly, she does talk about when Disney let her go. She doesn’t mention any particular video, but rather the way some fans reacted to her viral clips, saying…
With Disney, it is a bit scary because they want to protect the magic, and in the comments, people were trying to get my identity. It is scary because Disney wants to protect the magic, and I'll say that I protected the magic all the way until the end, and I never came out publicly and said like, 'This is me,' or anything until they ultimately let me go. That's when I spoke out publicly on it.
There seemed to be a general impression from fans, who saw a Cast Member seemingly speak out about a change in the way characters were being handled behind the scenes, and then lose her job. Said assumption was that Sabrina Von B. must have been fired for saying what she said out loud and upsetting the Mouse.
Based on what Von B. is saying here, it sounds like the bigger issue is that her viral fame in general, and possibly that video specifically, led to people trying to figure out who she was, and that led to her being let go. Once that happened, she publicly revealed her identity on TikTok:
If this is what really happened, it’s quite frustrating, though not particularly surprising. It’s exactly what happened a couple of years ago to a performer in Magic Kingdom’s Christmas parade, who saw his character pulled from the park. That removal was reportedly because overzealous guests found out who he really was and were calling him by name during the parade.
As I said then, I wish Disney fans would stop this. The Cast Members who perform for us are wonderful, and they perform all sorts of fantastic services. While I might understand the desire to know them more directly, doing that only causes problems, and most of them are felt by the Cast Members themselves.
