You're Not Going To Believe How This Guy Transforms Himself Into a Disney Princess
In honor of the anniversary of the release of Sleeping Beauty on Jan. 29, 1959, we set out to find the biggest Disney princess superfan out there. Meet Richard Schaefer.
Schaefer has been a fan of Disney princesses since he was a kid, but it wasn’t until he was in high school that he decided to become a Disney princess.
The 22-year-old Los Angeles-based student has been cosplaying as a Disney princess for over five years, and if you look at the princess photos on his Instagram profile, you’d never know that he is a 6-foot-tall guy.
In real life, Richard dresses in black and neutral colors most of the time, but a look in his closet reveals dozens of princess dresses, wigs, and costumes.
Richard says that as a kid, he was overweight and underconfident, and he was often teased about his looks, but that changed when he lost weight in high school.
“I had always been teased for my weight or how androgynous I look. I was always asked, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ Like all the time, and it just became a regular thing,” he says. “As I lost weight and gained a bunch of self-confidence, I kind of came to terms with my appearance, like: “This is who I am. I have to own it.’”
The Little Mermaid was the first movie Richard ever saw, and he has always loved Ariel. In childhood pictures, he is often carrying an Ariel doll.
When he decided to dress up, Ariel was a natural choice, but Richard says he knew nothing about makeup — especially princess makeup. He says he had to learn how to make his eyes look big and how to make his skin look smooth, like an animated character’s.
He has now dressed up as more than 15 Disney princesses, from Ariel…
to Belle,…
and even Aurora, from Sleeping Beauty, which premiered 58 years ago.
Richard says Aurora is one of his favorites because she’s so graceful.
“Normally I’m kind of like a clumsy person,” he says. “I don’t consider myself graceful, but when I’m in that dress and the wig and the makeup, I just feel amazing.”
These days, Richard is studying to become a makeup artist, specializing in special-effects makeup. He says that cosplaying helped him realize that he wants to do that.
“I didn’t start off wanting to do it professionally. It was just a hobby for me,” he says. “And I figured out that I just loved doing makeup and that it’s my passion and that I just love making other people feel as beautiful as I feel as a princess.”
If you, too, are #Obsessed with a movie, TV series or celebrity, let us know your story on Facebook or in the comments below!
To see more of our series, check out our episode below with a superfan of all things Wizard Of Oz:
What’s your #Obsession? Share it on our brand-new Flickr group! You might be featured in an upcoming episode of Yahoo’s #Obsessed.
