15 People Who Look SO MUCH Like Disney Princesses
Who hasn't wanted to be a Disney person at some point in their life? The gorgeous gowns, the fairytale story, the magic, the happily ever after. However, we do know that, in the real world, Disney princesses can't really exist, at least not the way they were drawn. They have eyes as large as their wrists, a head that simply cannot be held up properly on a neck that slim and long, a waist that is the width of their forearms, and hair without split ends. The ideal Disney princess look is almost impossible to achieve.
Unless you're any of these people, that is.
Instead of limiting themselves to being the exact measurements or replicas of Disney royalty, these real life lookalikes use wigs, costumes, and makeup to achieve the Disney princess look. And, man, are they good at it! Some have gotten so good, they've made it their life's work, charging fees for high-profile appearances and making tons of cash off of social media. From Frozen's Elsa to The Little Mermaid's Ariel, these 15 men and women prove that magic still exists, and that anyone - with the right amount of effort - can become their own Disney princess.
15 The Nurse Elsa
Nurse Lydia Lewington of Reading, Berkshire, England fell into the role of Elsa from Frozen (the first of many on this list) by agreeing to dress up in costume and entertain children for a photographer friend at a local mall. So it was no surprise when, as one of the most popular Disney princesses in recent memory, Lydia was surrounded by kids who begged for photos with her and parents who asked her to come to their children's birthday parties. In addition to charging for her appearances, Lydia has been working a heart of gold rather than a heart of ice, and regularly visits the sick children in the hospital where she works!
Lydia takes her job as a real-life Elsa very seriously, and says she's watched Frozen over 30 times in order to answer all the questions asked of her by the children, so that she can be their real-life Elsa. With naturally blonde hair and a costume she picked up for about $35, this nurse is bringing a little Disney magic wherever she goes.
14 The American Merida
A talented seamstress, this Reddit user (who prefers to remain anonymous) crafted herself an outfit from a medieval dress pattern and dyed linen after the film Brave, and uploaded it to the website to see if the rest of Reddit agreed that she resembled the fiery archery star, Merida, from the film. Pretty soon after she asked, she appeared on the site's front page, so that would be a major thumbs-up to her question.
A natural redhead, the girl also stated in an interview with Huffington Post that she loved Merida because she was an imperfect character. “They didn't write her as a sweet, gentle princess, whose only desire is to be kind - they wrote her as a sassy, self-reliant girl with a bit of a selfish streak.” Another similarity between this girl from Georgia and the princess from Scotland? A fondness for archery, which she learned from her grandfather, and took up again in order to nail these photos!
13 The British Elsa
With white-blonde hair and wide blue eyes, shop assistant Alex Jenkins of Portbury, Somerset, England was regularly stopped and stared at while at work, owing to her physical similarity to the Queen of Arendelle, Elsa. After more and more people began telling her how closely she resembled her animated doppelgänger, Alex decided to begin appearing in full costume as Elsa for children's parties and corporate events. Although Alex has said that it doesn't take long for her to transform into the Disney fave, she has taken it upon herself to attend singing lessons, in order to belt out the Oscar-winning song, “Let It Go” from the film for her adoring little fans!
Having turned down the opportunity to play Elsa at Disneyland Paris, Alex can usually be found in a snow globe attraction about four times a week, and says she loves every minute of it. “It's lovely to be compared to such a popular character,” she's said. “I'm surprised by how much it's taken off!”
12 The Scottish Merida
With a Scottish heritage like Merida, the fiery princess from Brave, it's only natural to have a Scottish lookalike as one of her doppelgängers! Enter Caitlyn Boyd, a teenager from Brechin, Angus, Scotland, who actually won the Sunday Mail's international search for a Merida lookalike that saw contestants submit photos from all over the UK, Australia, and the US! For her reward, Caitlyn and her family were invited to attend the Florida Highland Games at Orlando's Disney World, where she met the actress who was currently playing Merida at the amusement park - and who said that Caitlyn should be the one doing her job!
Even before the film was released and only the trailer was available, Caitlyn was being told by friends and family that she was a dead ringer for the Scottish lass, due to her flaming curls and round face. Her mother was even quoted as saying, “Watching clips of Brave is like watching a cartoon version of Caitlyn. It's like Disney have created an animated version of my daughter. It's incredible.”
11 The Filipino Pochahontas
As part of the creation of a series of portraits featuring real-life Disney princesses, photographer Ryan Astamendi tapped Filipino model Sherri Lansang of California to be his Pochahontas. Despite the differences in ethnicity, Sherri's resemblance to this Disney princess is uncanny! Outside of hair, makeup, and costume, Sherri doesn't look quite so identical to Pochahontas, but within this photoshoot, she could easily be the princess's real-life twin!
While Sherri is currently working as a model, she - like another real-life Disney princess on this list - is also a registered nurse. However, upon finding success in modelling, she's since transitioned to working as a VIP host at a club inside the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. The photographer of this series clearly had a keen eye for detail, including posing his models: With her tilted chin, strong bone structure, and full lips, Sherri looks like the animated Pochahontas brought to life!
10 The Celebrity Rapunzel
A lot of major celebrities are credited with looking like Disney princesses, with varying degrees of accuracy. However, when it comes to Amanda Seyfried, everyone is unanimous in choosing her for her uncanny resemblance to Rapunzel of Disney's Tangled. With her wide green eyes, long blonde hair, and pointed chin, Amanda is a dead ringer for the animated character voiced by Mandy Moore in the film. In fact, in a series of portraits created by Jirka Väätäinen that recreated animated Disney characters as they might look in real life, his Rapunzel creation looked remarkably similar to Amanda (with a dash of AnnaSophia Robb)!
Another point for Amanda as Rapunzel's eerily similar twin is that she can sing, as she proved through her work in Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables. So, if Hollywood comes knocking for a live-action reboot of Tangled, we think Amanda should definitely be their number one choice!
9 The Anna Doppelgänger
We'll introduce you to her sister later, but this dead ringer for Anna from Frozen is played by Florida native Lexie Grace Carlson, one half of the Frost Sisters with her older sibling, Anna Faith Carlson. With a red wig (Lexie is naturally blonde) and a few beautifully detailed costumes, the teenager joins her sister playing Princess Anna of Arendelle for children's parties and school events. In fact, in the spirit of being an entrepreneur, the two created the Frost Sisters as a company!
But Lexie isn't content with being only Anna (although she has said she loves what she does when she's not studying at school), and her Instagram account, which you can find here, also shows her dressed as other famous fictional characters, like Poison Ivy, Rapunzel, and Princess Leia. Anna is of course the most popular of her cosplays, and alongside her sister as Queen Elsa, Lexie calls Universal Studios her home for half of the year!
8 The Famous Belle
We know that Emma Watson was chosen to play Belle in the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, but there's no denying that Oscar winner Anne Hathaway is clearly the star who looks the most like the animated beauty. Plus, she's had princess experience before, playing Mia in The Princess Diaries, the girl who goes from geeky to gorgeous in one of the best movie makeover scenes in history!
With her flowing hair, full red lips, and huge eyes, Anne is a dead ringer for the thinking girl's favourite Disney princess - and she has singing experience to boot! Not to mention that her wide, toothy smile is totally Disney-ready. A favourite choice among Disney fans, it was a bit of a blow to learn that Emma would be taking on a role that looks made for Anne, even though we know Emma is going to kill it because the trailers look absolutely incredible!
7 The Brazilian Elsa
Being a princess can have its drawbacks - just ask Andressa Damiani. The veterinarian from Brazil has porcelain features and white-blonde hair that mimic Elsa from Frozen (that's three Elsas so far, if you're counting), but says that she has actually terrified people with her cartoon-like features!
Andressa claims that she achieves her Elsa-like look with minimal exercise and ea healthy diet, and claims to have had no surgery in order to achieve her doll-like look. Instead, she credits makeup and contact lenses for helping her achieve her Disney resemblance, and says she loves being compared to the Queen of Arendelle. In addition to making a name for herself as Elsa, Andressa has also received attention from fans who say that she resembles china dolls and Barbie dolls. Despite getting a lot of negativity sent her way from people who insist she starves herself to maintain her slim figure, or that she's used surgery in order to achieve her look, Andressa maintains that her Elsa appearance is all natural, and something to be celebrated!
6 The Rapunzel Twin
Nope, that's not a digital image - it's actually a real-life woman who looks eerily identical to Disney's Rapunzel! Another installation in the photo series by photographer Ryan Astamendi (who did the Pochahontas photo above), this Tangled-inspired shoot used LA actress and model Skyler Vallo as the model for the frying pan-swinging princess. With her green eyes, long blonde hair, and dead-on facial expression, Skyler is strikingly similar to Rapunzel.
It seemed to be fate that Skyler played Rapunzel for this photo series, in fact, because after the photographer reached out to her to model, she informed him that not only does she look like Rapunzel, but that she actually plays her at Disneyland! Unfortunately, that didn't mean the pair got a free costume, and so a new one had to be created for the shoot, plus 15 feet of hair! We'd say the work was definitely worth it, because Skyler doesn't just look like Rapunzel - she basically IS Rapunzel!
5 The Model Jasmine
What started as a fun Halloween costume ended up making this real-life Disney princess go viral! Olayinka Mia Noel of New York dressed up as Princess Jasmine this past Halloween, but once she posted a photo of her costume on Instagram, she blew up, with people all over the world telling her how similar she looked to Aladdin's lady love. In fact, she even sang a little bit of “A Whole New World” with her boyfriend, who was dressed as Aladdin. (For the record, she got positive reviews for her singing talents, but her BF? Not so much.)
Olayinka, in an interview with the Daily Mail, said that she had been likened to Jasmine a few times, but that she didn't see the resemblance until she purchased her costume online for less than $10! However, she did also state that Jasmine was her favourite princess growing up, and why wouldn't she be? Jasmine is pretty kicka** as far as Disney princesses go, with a feistiness that helped usher in the newer generation of Disney royalty.
4 The Real-Life Ariel
There's looking like a Disney princess, and then there's making being a Disney princess your entire life. The latter belongs to Traci Hines, a singer, fashion designer, and YouTube star who has taken on the identity of Ariel as her own. She sings and dresses like Ariel, and even had a Little Mermaid-themed wedding that was totally over-the-top as far as Disney weddings go!
Traci now performs as Ariel for children, and regularly attends comicons and other cosplay events to show off her best Ariel impression. In fact, she even released a music video singing “Part of Your World”, dressed as her favourite Disney character! (You can watch that here.) Then, when the Hipster Ariel meme happened, Traci uploaded a photo of herself with her own thick-framed glasses, and even more fame came to her as the Hipster Ariel Meme in real life! Ultimately, though, through her work as an IRL mermaid, Traci wants to bring to children what Ariel brought to her, which was joy, hope, and happiness.
3 The #1 Elsa Lookalike
After three other Elsa lookalikes, this one is definitely the winner! The other half of the Frost Sisters (younger sibling Lexie Grace is mentioned above), model Anna Faith Carlson gained viral stardom when she snapped a photo of herself next to an Elsa cutout, eyebrow raised to match the animated princess. Since then, she's started the Frost Sisters with Lexie Grace, and spends half of her time at Universal Studios, which isn't too far from home for the Florida resident.
A major fan of cosplay, Anna has brought her gorgeous looks to play other characters, like Harley Quinn opposite her sister's Poison Ivy, and even Mother Gothel opposite Lexie's Rapunzel! Before securing a spot at Universal Studios, the pair would regularly attend events at shopping centres or children's birthday parties to play as their Disney doppelgängers. While everything usually went well, sometimes children would cry out of seeing their animated idols come to life! Hey, it's magic!
2 The Girl Who's All the Princesses
Fulfilling every girl's dream to transform into a real-life Disney princess, Colorado resident Sarah Ingle chose to not stop at only one princess - she decided to become all of them. And it cost her a pretty penny to do it, too! In total, Sarah has spent over $14k on wigs and outfits in order to achieve her Disney dreams, and will spend hours perfecting their makeup and mannerisms in order to be as close to her animated counterparts as possible.
In addition to a full-time job as a marketing manager, Sarah spends her weekends dressing as a princess for parties and community events, and cites Ariel as her favourite princess to play because she gets to “wear a red wig and a tail and be a mermaid for a day.” Talk about a dream come true! With her cartoon-like features, it's pretty incredible that Sarah has been able to cash in in such a big way, including opening up her own company, Princess Ever After, which specializes in Disney impersonators! Check out all her looks here.
1 The Boy Who's a Disney Chameleon
The one guy on our list is also the BEST Disney princess cosplayer of all time! Freelance makeup artists Richard Schaefer makes his own costumes and clocks each total transformation in at about two hours. With his androgynous look, Richard has used his skills to create some truly envy-inducing Disney princess costumes! Since he owns 40 costumes, 30 wigs, and a steel-boned corset, nothing stops this guy from becoming Belle, Ariel, Rapunzel, or Cinderella!
A bit of a loner at school when he was younger, Richard was teased for his looks and spent much of his time by himself, sketching and designing new outfits. Fortunately, once he started taking pictures of his work, he was embraced by social media and became a major star in the Disney and cosplay fandoms. Richard now credits his Disney transformation skills as having helped him become a more confident person, and that is something every single Disney princess can stand behind. If you're interested in seeing all of his looks, check out his Instagram!