Halle Bailey Stuns With Enchanting 'EBONY' Magazine Cover

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Halle Bailey is looking captivating while covering yet another publication, and we want to be “part of her world.”

The songstress-turned-Ariel actress is on the cover of EBONY magazine and detailing how she found her voice, just like the famed mermaid she’s portraying in Disney’s forthcoming film.

The 23-year-old told writer Kayla Greaves that her confidence has catapulted as she rose “from child star to Hollywood sensation.”

“… my sister and I were nominated for Grammys. We sang “Where Is the Love,” by Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, and that was actually the performance that got me noticed by Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall. It was confirmation for me that my own abilities and belief in myself [is enough].”

She also expressed that she always received outside encouragement but did not hold the belief within herself.

“It was always other people telling me, ‘You can do it, you can do it.’ But recently, especially after I finished filming, I finally felt that within myself. I believed in myself for the first time.”

Source: Keith Major @KeithMajor / Ebony Magazine

See more excerpts from her EBONY cover story below.

On how she deals with low moments and false social media commentary about her life.

“I think sometimes when you’re in the public eye from such a young age, people forget that you’re human. They forget that comments about your life can hurt your feelings. But I have to shift my focus off of other people’s opinions—and the naysayers, and the noise—and just silence it. I realized that when I step away from that, I feel 100% better about myself.

It’s been a really big, beautiful lesson for me in terms of patience. I have had to learn how to control myself, and to control my tongue. As a human, when you see people say these things about you, immediately you want to defend yourself. But I’ve just had to realize that it doesn’t matter. This position that I’m in, this movie, this role, is way bigger than me. The impact it’s going to have on future generations and our generation now is just so important. It’s making a lot of people proud. That overshadows all of the negativity that might be out there.”

On if she needed Black Ariel as a child and the importance of the newly imagined character having natural hair like hers.

“Oh yeah, absolutely. But what I love about today [is that it’s normalized]. Somebody told me the other day, “[This generation of kids are] not even going to know the first version [of The Little Mermaid]. Their version of Ariel is you.”

I also love that there’s so much Black diversity on-screen now. There was a time when we’d barely see locs—and now we have a Disney princess with them, which has never happened before.

It was super important for me to have my natural hair in this film. I was really grateful to Rob Marshall, because he wanted to keep my locs. It’s always important to have somebody to cosign. I’ve had my locs since I was 5, so they’re a huge part of who I am. We need to be able to see ourselves, we need to be able to see our hair on big screens like this, so that we know that it’s beautiful and more than acceptable.”