The Real Beauty and the Beast Story

Briar learns that the beauty and the beast story was based on real people!

Welcome to Briar’s daily journal. This is where Briar writes about everything she learns daily, mostly for her own personal record. Never stop learning ♥

03/14/2025

I learned a couple of things today.

First, I was driving to work this morning. KLOVE was on, and this week, it is the TobyMac takeover. Right as I get in the car, TobyMac says,

“If you’re driving to work right now, get ready because you will probably only hear this song once.”

The song was Can’t Stop Me.

It was a fun song to drive to, for sure.

ALSO!! I just learned this literally five seconds ago. TOBYMAC’S REAL NAME IS KEVIN MCKEEHAN??? My mind is blown. Who knew his name was Kevin this whole time?

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A little while ago, I learned that Beauty and the Beast was based on a true story!

It’s a horrific tale of a little boy named Pedro Gonzalez, born with a genetic condition, hypertrichosis universalis congenita. This is also known as Werewolf Syndrome, which causes excessive hair growth.

Pedro was treated like an animal and was given to King Henry II of France as a gift. The king recognized Pedro’s intelligence and as a joke gave him an education, thinking he was wild and wouldn’t be able to learn. He was proven wrong, and Pedro was taught three languages, etiquette, and other things. When the king passed away his wife, the queen, was put in charge of “the beast.”

She decided she wanted him to marry a beautiful servant girl so they could have little beast children. She found a beautiful young teen named Catherine and chose her to marry Pedro.

The marriage was arranged, and Catherine and Pedro met for the first time at the altar, pledging their lives to each other!

Despite their initial frightened interaction, Catherine fell in love with Pedro’s kind personality and truly loved him. They had seven children together. Much to the Queen’s delight, four had been born with the genetic condition.

The story has a tragic ending. The Queen ended up exploiting the little children and sold them off to various royalty as pets. They were not treated as humans.

Pedro and Catherine were married for many years until their deaths, and despite only getting to raise three of their normal children, they led quiet lives in Italy after a while.

Pedro was considered the first documented case of this genetic condition, and since then, there have been about 50 cases.

-Briar Albaugh