In a touching moment, Disney worker makes boy's day even after his mom yelled at him

Editor's note: This article was originally published on April 18, 2022. It has since been updated.

A Disney worker opened up about an adorable story at work that is now winning hearts. Comedian Ryan Kelly works as a cast member at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, and takes various jobs and roles as part of his work. On this particular day, Kelly started at Princess Dining before ending the day as Spider-Man. Kelly, who's also a stand-up comedian, endured a horrible day at work, but in an amazing turnaround he was able to put a smile on a kid's face, reported Yahoo News. The TikTok video garnered more than 3 million views and 720,000 likes.

He was doing a shift at Princess Storybook Dining Experience when a woman shouted at him for not speaking Spanish. In a surprising turn of events, he later went on to delight the same woman's child. “One day, I’m at Princess Dining,” said Kelly in the video. “Then a woman comes up to me. She starts speaking a language that I don’t understand—which, spoiler alert, is all but one language—and then she starts yelling at me for not speaking Spanish. That’s the only thing that I can make out about this language.” 

Kelly was confused and wondering what was going on, so he asked a friend from El Salvador to translate. “But I can tell right out the gate that he’s pretty confused. And then, after they’re done having their conversation, I go, ‘What was she saying?’ And he goes, ‘Well, she was mad at you for not speaking Spanish,'” he explained. Kelly is from Missouri as his name tag mentioned, and joked that she should have been “thankful I speak English.”

His friend also added that she was not speaking Spanish but Portuguese. Later, dressed up as Spider-Man, he was still annoyed by the incident and had actually tried to learn a few basic phrases and words in Portuguese. As he was preparing to take pictures with the kids, he could hear someone talking in Portuguese. He looked up and, sure enough, there she was—the woman who had shouted at him earlier, right in front of the line with her 4-year-old son.

Kelly was thankful for the suit because there was no way she could recognize him. “The woman who just yelled at me in Portuguese is [at the] front of my line,” said Kelly. “And then she goes and gets her 4-year-old son, who’s just so excited to meet Spider-Man.” As they walked toward him, Kelly realized her 4-year-old was very nervous to talk to Spider-Man. “I realized in that moment why he’s nervous is because he doesn’t speak English, and he doesn’t know how to talk to Spider-Man,” said Kelly, but now he had a trick up his sleeve. “And I know exactly what that just felt like. So I go, ‘No problem.’ And I drop down to one knee, and I go, ‘boa tarde, tudo bem,’ and he lights up because Spider-Man speaks what he speaks.”

He also said a few other phrases he knew including “Good afternoon” and “It’s all right.” The kid was happy about being able to converse with Spider-Man and spoke a few more sentences to him. "Now I'd love to tell you what he told me in Portuguese, but I have no idea," said Kelly, humbly, adding, "All I know is we got a picture and he left thinking that Spider-Man cared enough to learn what he learned." He concluded, "So, in the end, I was really glad that I got yelled at in Portuguese."

Many praised him for making the kid's day and turning around his own as well. “This is so sweet! When I was younger, Spider-Man at Universal spoke some Portuguese with me, and I can definitely say it made my whole trip,” wrote one person. Another added, "This ended up being wholesome in the best way 🥺 You made that kid’s day."