Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Emilia Pérez’ Star Apologizes After A Slew Of Her Old Racist Tweets Resurface
“Emilia Pérez” star and Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón is under fire for a series of unearthed tweets in which she spewed hateful rhetoric toward numerous marginalized people and communities.
Her posts, some of them from as early as 2018, included racist remarks about Black people and Muslims, and a comment in defense of Adolf Hitler, who Gascón said “simply had his opinion of the Jews.”
She also described George Floyd, the Black man murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, as “a drug addict and a scammer,” according to a HuffPost translation.
After her old posts came to light on Thursday, Gascón deleted her account on X, formerly Twitter, and apologized in a statement, The Associated Press reports.
“As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain,” said Gascón, who is transgender, in a statement sent to the AP via Netflix, where her film can be streamed.
“All my life I have fought for a better world,” she continued. “I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
The revelation of Gascón’s tweets arrives amid an Oscars race where she, and the movie she stars in, were already front and center. The Spanish-born performer made history earlier this month as the first openly trans performer to be nominated for the Academy Award for best actress. Her historic nod is just one among a whopping 13 Oscar nominations for “Emilia Pérez” ― which makes the controversial film, directed by Jacques Audiard and co-starring Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez, the most-nominated non-English-language film in Academy history.
Gascón’s social media history came to light on Thursday, when journalist Sarah Hagi posted screenshots of several tweets Gascón published between 2020 and 2021 attacking Muslims.
One of Gascón’s tweets includes a crude cartoon of a Muslim man weeping.
“New attack in France, decapitated people in Nice by one of the retarded people that follow Allah,” she wrote in Spanish, according to a translation by HuffPost. “How many times are we going to have to expel these madmen from Europe to realize that their religion is INCOMPATIBLE with Western values? We do not learn.”
After Hagi’s initial post, other tweets began to come to light across X.
In one tweet published shortly after Floyd’s murder — which sparked protests across the U.S. and around the world against police brutality and systemic racism — Gascón decided to express her thoughts on the tragedy.
“I honestly think very few people really cared about George Floyd. He was a drug addict and a scammer,” Gascón wrote, as translated by HuffPost. “But after his death has served to once again to highlight that there are people who still think Black monkeys have no rights and who consider police are killers. They are so wrong.”
In another tweet from 2018, Gascón took a stance in defense of a genocidal dictator.
“This is the same old story, ‘black slaves and women go to the kitchen.’ It’s my opinion and it should be respected,” she wrote. “I do not understand why everyone is making a world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion of the Jews. Well, that’s how the world works.”
Variety also translated several more of Gascón’s tweets before they were deleted. One of them included criticism of the 2021 Oscars, where Daniel Kaluuya, who is Black, and Youn Yuh-jung, who is South Korean, won for best supporting actor and best supporting actress, respectively.
“More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films,” Gascón wrote, according to Variety’s translation. “I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
Following the news of Gascón’s tweets and her apology, many people are upset that she’s still in the running to win one of Hollywood’s most prestigious awards.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council sent a statement to The Wrap on Thursday expressing its dismay.
“Deleted or not, these tweets are hurtful, offensive, and shocking, most especially coming from someone who is a member of another vulnerable community,” the group’s statement reads. “Muslims are part of every community, including the transgender community.”
“‘European values?’ Does she mean the ones that led to the Holocaust?” the statement continued. “She needs to immerse herself in Islamic history. When Europe was in the dark age, Muslims were busy discovering math, science, and medical equipment. Learn, woman.”
