Princess And The Frog star "deeply disappointed" by Disney's cancellation of Tiana

To no one’s surprise, last week, after five years of development and going through the trouble of updating Splash Mountain, courting controversy from Song Of The South fans, Disney canceled its unaired The Princess And The Frog spin-off, Tiana. Though the sources within the company claim the show “could not get to where it needed to be given production costs,” considering the fates of Win Or Lose’s trans character and the company’s commitment to killing its DEI initiatives, it was only a matter of time before CEO Bob Iger remembered Disney was producing a show about its only Black princess. Who knows what the loudest, most annoying, and most hateful audience members would say if they found Tiana, of all Disney princesses, got her own TV show?

One person particularly disheartened by Disney’s decision is voice actor Anika Noni Rose, who voiced Tiana and is now out of the job. On Instagram today, Rose said she was as “deeply disappointed” as the fans who sent her messages of “kindness, support, and overwhelming disappointment.” Initially announced in 2020, Tiana “was a long time coming, and a lot of beautiful work was put into it by all of the creatives involved,” she said. However, after a half-decade of work, the company that turned a six-episode Moana series into a billion-dollar blockbuster couldn’t do the same for Tiana. Still, Rose holds out “hope” for a “Tiana Special Event” that Disney is reportedly working on, encouraging fans to “show your love and desire in the numbers.”

“As hurtful as it is for anything you’ve put your heart and soul in to be prematurely ended, my hope is that when what is now to be a Tiana Special Event airs that all of your beautiful, loving, loyal fans who’ve been championing not just the series, but a Princess And The Frog sequel, tune in,” she said in her post. “And when I say tune in, I mean, tell your friends, family, coworkers, baby sitters: tell all the people you know who have loved Princess Tiana, Naveen, Louis, Charlotte, Mama Odie, and the magic they’ve created together over the years, and make sure you are watching. Show your love and your desire in the numbers. Make that desire an undeniable and real thing.”