Former Disney princess Helen Planchet told Insider that auditioning for a job at parks as a biracial woman took a toll on her mental health. Over the seven years she spent auditioning, she said, she saw white women get cast as characters of color. 

“I guess I regret letting it wear me down the way it did because I started to get very upset that I knew I was talented enough for some of these jobs and to see them go to white women, who already have so many opportunities, started to break down my confidence,” she told Insider.

“In 2010, there was no Moana. There was no Elena of Avalor. There was no Mirabel from ‘Encanto,'” Planchet said.

“Even though I looked more like Jasmine and Pocahontas than some of the women they cast, it didn’t matter,” she said. And, she added, Disney was “definitely not gonna let me play a white princess.”

Each Disney role has certain physical requirements, like height, in order to keep consistency with the different performers playing them across the parks.

During her audition process, Planchet said she also tried out for white princess roles, like Ariel in “Voyage of the Little Mermaid,” and often didn’t make it “past the first cut.” 

“Eventually between that and between auditioning for roles that were characters of color — not even my specific ethnicity, but just characters who have the same skin tone that I do — and seeing it go to white women who were also playing Rapunzel and things like that, it just started to wear me down and make me feel like I wasn’t good enough.”

There are far fewer princesses of color in the parks, and some fans have called out the company for casting white women in the roles

After auditioning “about 60” times between 2010 and 2017, Planchet was cast as Princess Elena of Avalor in Disneyland’s “Princess Elena’s Musical Grand Arrival,” which ran seasonally during the Disney Festival of Holidays for two years.

“When I first started auditioning for Disney, I didn’t quite realize that my race was going to be so limiting to me,” she said.

Disney only introduced its first princess of color in 1992 with Jasmine in “Aladdin.” And there are currently at least six princesses of color who appear in the parks: Jasmine, who’s West Asian; Pocahontas, who’s Indigenous; Mulan, who’s Chinese; Tiana, who’s Black; Moana, who’s Polynesian; and Elena, who’s Latina.

There are at least nine white princess roles in the parks.

Some Disney fans have also noticed the company casting white women in roles of color. A 2020 petition on Change.org titled, “Make sure Disney stops casting white people for roles that require real people of color” has gained over 40,000 signatures. 

Representatives for Disney did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.