Staff at the magical kingdom aren’t allowed to speak anything but English, one former Disney World actress claimed.
“Disney has a big rule against performers speaking other languages besides English,” TikTok user Jessica Tremmel alleged in a viral video that has racked up over 268,000 likes and 1.3 million views. Tremmel formerly played Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother from “Cinderella,” at the resort, though she does not specify in the clip when she stopped working at Disney.
Despite the purported rule, Tremmel claimed that while in costume, she spoke to guests in both Spanish and French, in which she is respectively proficient and conversational.
“If I had been caught, that is a big reprimand and potentially getting fired,” she claimed in the clip. “But I loved just going up to tables where people didn’t speak English and surprising them with the fact that I spoke their language. With French it was mostly French Canadians, and there are a ton of Spanish speakers that visit us.”
Disney did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment. However, according to the theme park’s website, it has complimentary translation devices available in French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. “Featuring performances by professional voice actors, the devices provide non-English-speaking guests an opportunity to enjoy an attraction in very much the same spirit of the original recordings,” a post said.
And one Disney blog reports that cast members are in fact encouraged to speak other languages with guests so long as they formally get pre-approval. “[Quite] a few cast members speak more than one language, and they’ll typically wear a tag under their name badge indicating what other languages they speak,” World of Walt states. “If you find one who speaks your language, they’ll be more than happy to help you. If they don’t know your language, they will usually know where to find another cast member who does.”