Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has issued a response after receiving racist backlash over her ambition to star as Rapunzel.
In a recent interview, the 21-year-old Netflix star said her dream role would be to play the Disney princess in a live-action remake of 2010’s Tangled.
After making the comments, some online critics responded negatively due to the fact that Rapunzel is white in Tangled and Ramakrishnan is Tamil Canadian.
Ramakrishnan hit back at the criticism on Thursday (15 June), tweeting a link to the song “I’ve Got a Dream” from the Tangled soundtrack alongside the caption: “Anyways… the ‘mega fans; who are pressed because I said I’ve got a dream role clearly didn’t listen to the sound track enough.”
In a follow-up tweet, she added: “Not feeling bad about saying my dream and wishing for a shot to show what I got. till then, I’m still just living my life trying to learn how to crochet.”
The actor previously told CBS: “I think Rapunzel should be a South Asian girl. Because hear me out, no one knows what it feels like to be trapped in your room, not able to go out because your mother is telling you no, without giving you an actual proper reason like brown girls do. It’s true. That would be like a dream role for me.”
The coming-of-age teen series, created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, returned for a fourth and final series earlier this week.
Never Have I Ever follows Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), an Indian-American high school student after her father suddenly passes away.
On the press run for the new series, Ramakrishnan revealed she was once told to change her name as “no one’s going to remember a name so long”.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7-days
New subscribers only. £6.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7-days
New subscribers only. £6.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
But she pushed back and declared: “I’m like, f*** you, no thanks.”
Ramakrishnan previously told The Independent in an interview last year that she would love to star in Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, which returned for a sixth season this week.
She also expressed how happy she was to see South Asian actors take up lead roles in series like Bridgerton.
“I could give a general statement like how I wish I had a show like this when I was younger… but it’s been really awesome to see a South Asian character be the love interest, specifically,” she said.
Never Have I Ever season four is out now on Netflix.
