A Disney superfan came under fire on TikTok after a video of her approaching her favorite character, Peter Pan, went viral last month. Now, the woman internet critics have dubbed “Peter Pan Girl” is defending herself, saying the interaction was completely misunderstood.
“People can take something really small and turn it into something big without even knowing what it’s truly about,” Christina Toni Kulusich, who goes by @BabyToni99 on TikTok, told USA Today.
That something happened on July 31, when Kulusich shared a TikTok video of herself at Disneyland giving a Peter Pan park actor a handmade crocheted keychain.
In the footage, the actor who plays Peter Pan is seen accepting the dinosaur-shaped gift, posing for a photo with Kulusich and walking with her through the park.
The video received more than 44 million views, with many TikTok users suggesting Kulusich had an unhealthy obsession with the fictional character while expressing sympathy for the park actor.
“I know he went on a cigarette break after this,” one commenter wrote.
“Make sure there’s no AirTag inside,” wrote another.
Kulusich, a 27-year-old Los Angeles native and married retail store manager, describes herself as a “Disney adult.”
She said she’s had an annual Disneyland pass since 2015 — when she first met the Peter Pan character, then played by a different actor, at the park — and now tries to visit once a week. But according to Kulusich, it’s a hobby, not an obsession.
“It’s not like I’m going to the store or to my job and thinking about Peter Pan,” she told Wired magazine in a separate interview. “It’s just that when I’m inside Disney, I’m able to release my inner child and the kid who doesn’t want to grow up. And that’s what [Peter Pan] stands for.”
Kulusich said she was carrying around the crocheted dinosaur keychain at Disneyland before she had an opportunity to give it to Peter Pan — which she said is evidence she’s not a stalker.
“I held a dinosaur for nine weeks because we didn’t see each other,” Kulusich said. “I wouldn’t have had it for nine weeks if I was that crazy trying to find him.”
Actors who work at Disney theme parks have reported run-ins with creepy adult fans.
Andrey Lull, who portrayed Peter Pan, among other characters, at Disney World in Orlando, told USA Today that he was warned by supervisors about adult patrons who might figure out his real identity.
“I had people that learned my schedule,” he said. “They would just show up, and they would be like the first one in for every single one of my [shifts].”
Lull added, “It wasn’t the kids that were weird. It was mostly the adults.”
Sarah Daniels, a former Walt Disney World actor, said in her own TikTok video that she was routinely harassed by men while in character.
“There were many moments, especially as Tinker Bell, where I had men — married men — hand me keys to their hotel room and tell me where they were staying,” Daniels said.
Kulusich, who once worked at Disneyland, said she is acutely aware of the rules governing interactions between park visitors and character actors, such as those who play Peter.
“I would never put him in a situation that would harm him or his role or his career or his character integrity,” she said.
Kulusich posted another video with various clips highlighting more than a decade of interactions with Peter Pan at the park, fueling claims that her interest bordered on obsession. But one of the actors featured in it, Dylan Gadeke, came to her defense.
“Yes, I had many interactions with Toni,” Gadeke, who worked as a park Peter Pan from 2014 to 2021, said in his own TikTok video. “As you can see in the video, Toni’s behavior did make me feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, but at no point did it cross any boundaries of what character interactions should look like at Disneyland.”
He added: “She was very enthusiastic about meeting the character — maybe a little more so than most — but it never crossed the boundary of trying to get to know the performer.”
In her interview with Wired, Kulusich admitted that the viral criticism has “definitely taken a toll on my mental health.”
“Imagine waking up to thousands of comments saying you’re a crazy stalker lady every single day,” she said.
But after staying away from the park for a few weeks, Kulusich returned. And after initially avoiding the area where Peter Pan usually hangs out (“I was afraid of making everything worse,” she said), he waved at her and asked her to ride on the carousel next to him.
“He told me never to stop visiting Neverland,” Kulusich said. “Which is honestly exactly what I needed to hear.”