Disney Princesses Expose "Obscene" Truth About What Really Goes On At Theme Parks

Even though Disneyland has been promoting itself as “The Happiest Place on Earth” since 1955, many who worked there have had a very different experience.

Influencer Alyssa Klinzing, 28, recently shared horrifying experiences she had while working as a Disney princess at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

She also alleged that the character performers were put at risk by the multi-billion-dollar company’s rigid rules and would lose their jobs if they couldn’t meet the employer’s expectations.

“It's very stressful for performers to have to navigate these situations on a daily basis,” Klinzing said.

Alyssa Klinzing, currently an influencer and gym co-owner with over 52,000 Instagram followers, worked at Disneyland from 2016 to 2023. She was initially cast as Princess Elsa from Frozen, and later performed as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, and Captain Marvel.

In a column published on June 2, 2026, Klinzing revealed the harrowing ordeal she went through after landing what she considered her “dream job” at the age of 20.

In February 2018, one interaction quickly became uncomfortable for Klinzing as she entertained guests in an ornate gown and heavy makeup.

“The guest basically took a hug from me, then sniffed me up from my shoulder all the way up into my ear with his lips pressed on my skin and whispered in my ear that he had dirty dreams about me,” she told the Daily Mail.

“He took his hands underneath my cape, so that no one could see where his hands were, and he was trying to get his hands into my skirt and had tried to unzip the back of my skirt. I was alone as a performer, so I remember that moment feeling like it was slow motion and I really didn't know what to do.”

Klinzing added that Disneyland has a strict rule about performers being required to stay in character at all times, no matter what, which forced her to continue smiling and performing even as the man groped her.

However, she filed an incident report with management afterward, but they took no action.

She was told that the guest had “intellectual disabilities” and would be allowed to keep visiting as long as he was with a chaperone. All performers, in general, are instructed to “divert the best” they can in such circumstances, Klinzing said.

The man returned several times and repeated the same behavior. After Klinzing asked Disney security to look at the guest’s file, it came to light that he had previously done the same thing with multiple other performers.

“If the same guest were defacing property, breaking a window, or doing something to the physical property of Disney, they would be kicked out, and they would never be allowed back in, ever,” Klinzing pointed out.

The appeal of working at Disneyland quickly faded for Alyssa Klinzing as cases of character harassment piled on for her and fellow employees.

Moreover, the performers were expected to maintain the same physique and appearance as when they were hired, and failure to comply often led to termination.

“For all performers, there is an expiration date,” Klinzing said. “You're portraying characters that are oftentimes 16 to 21 years old. The character stays that age, that look, and that silhouette forever, and you don't.

“I honestly think I have some PTSD [from it] that makes it really hard for me to deal with the aging process.”

Realizing she could not keep up with unrealistic beauty standards, she quit her job to “control” her career.

She revealed that her friends from the theme park, who have worked there for a decade, are now “going through the disapproval process” and losing their jobs as their appearances have outgrown the characters.

“Smile lines, wrinkles, sunspots - these are things that show that you've lived a really long and beautiful life and you've had the privilege to get older, but they're not things that a Disney princess is going to portray,” she said.

“It makes me feel like I made the right decision for myself to be the one who decided when my time was over.”

Long removed from the job and happily managing her business with her wife, Ale Vega, Klinzing now understands that the allure of Disney is strong enough to make employees endure such experiences.

“There are people who want it so bad that they don't really care what the pay is, they don't really care what the treatment is,” she said. “You're going to find people who are willing to deal with whatever it is in order to be able to say that they are a Disney performer.”

Over the years, several other Disneyland employees have come forward with complaints about subpar treatment of staff.

Influencer Hunter Haag, 33, worked as Rapunzel and Belle at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, from 2016 to 2021 until she got fired during the pandemic. In multiple posts on her social media platforms, she has talked about experiences of harassment similar to Klinzing.

In one, she talked about a man who made a lewd gesture at her with his tongue in front of his wife and children. She also spoke about one guest who asked her “how big” the Beast was while she performed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

“If someone is negative to you, then you deflect, or if they're inappropriate, you get help from your character attendant, but instead of saying, ‘Hey, this guest is being weird,’ I would say something like, ‘Can I go see Pascal [another character]?’ really quickly to my attendant, so they would know something was wrong,” Haag said, emphasizing the importance of maintaining “character integrity.”

In another video, she branded Disneyland’s audition process, which was based entirely on appearance rather than any other skill set, as “traumatizing.”

According to her, the company would review each performer’s physical measurements every eight months to ensure they still fit the character's “silhouette.” She also said that the heavy costumes and wigs gave her health problems, and that they were not allowed to “talk openly” about their jobs.

However, some have shared the other side of the story as well.

Sabrina Von B., now a music artist, portrayed Lady Tremaine, Maleficent, and the Evil Queen from Snow White for 8 years before she was let go in January 2026. Many videos of her interacting with visitors had gone viral, amassing millions of views.

After being fired, she revealed her real identity and shared her experience with People magazine, but she had nothing negative to say. She called her time at Disney “very rewarding” as she got to “create joy for people and make people smile, all while being a villain.”

“I don’t take it lightly that these experiences that I created for people are stories and things that they will take with them, for years to come, and hopefully make them like villains more and get on the side of villains and not just be scared of them,” she said at the time.