Stephanie Mills Shows Support for ‘Little Mermaid’ Star Halle Bailey

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Halle Bailey has a Broadway legend in her corner.

Ahead of The Little Mermaid’s theatrical release on Friday, Stephanie Mills shared an open letter she wrote to film star Bailey, 23, on Facebook, showing her support for the actress following racist comments against the actress online after her casting as Ariel in 2019.

Mills, who originated the role of Dorothy in the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, compared her own experience playing Dorothy on stage and the “hate mail” she received as a result to some of the attention negative that Bailey’s cast received for Disney’s new Reinventing Live-Action.

“I’ve been told Judy Garland is turning in her grave,” Mills, 66, wrote, referring to the star of the original 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. “All because a little black girl was playing a [role] which was once played by a white girl.”

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Halle Bailey. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

It’s sad to see the same happen to this beautiful, talented, smart, intelligent actress,” the actress wrote of the racist criticism leveled at Bailey.

“Halle, God put you in this place and this time…So let your light shine,” she added in the open letter. “Hold your head high, walk in your peace and celebrate the greatness that you are.

Mills received a Drama Desk Award nomination for her role as Dorothy in the original Broadway production of The Wiz; the show itself won seven Tony Awards in 1975, including Best Musical, per Playbill. Mills also reprized her role as Dorothy in a 1984 revival of The Wiz.

They told me I’d never make it on Broadway, they told me I couldn’t sing, they told me I was [too] I watched and listened as they tried to tell you why you shouldn’t and couldn’t,” Mills wrote in her letter to Bailey, adding, “I’m so proud of you and the way you handled all the naysayers.”

“We’ve never met, but I’ve been in your shoes. Baby girl, let ’em know this #LittleMermaid is Teflon,” she concluded in the open letter.

Bailey, for her part, has seemed gracious in ignoring criticism, recently telling PEOPLE, “I don’t really think about naysayers.”

“I just think of people who are positive and cheer me up,” the actress said, adding that she gives credit to other black movie stars like Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, Brandy in Cinderella and Anika. Noni Rose in The Princess and the Frog for lighting her way ahead of The Little Mermaid.

“When I got to see them, I felt worthy,” Bailey added. “Now that I’m on posters and inspiring these little girls who come up to me, it’s very surreal. I just want to keep making them proud of me.”

Halle Bailey.

VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

Bailey added during her recent interview that she hopes “people who go to see this movie love it and leave the theater feeling happy because we all collectively worked so hard on it.”

“I know for sure that I’m proud of it,” she said.

After its Friday release, The Little Mermaid has so far grossed more than $185 million worldwide in Memorial Day weekend alone.

The Little Mermaid is currently in theaters.

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