Karla Sofía Gascón says she won't exit Oscars race over offensive social media posts: 'I have not committed any crime'

History-making — yet currently embattled — Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is vowing not to bow out of the 2025 Oscars race for Best Actress after her past social media posts led to accusations of racism and Islamophobia.

After journalist Sarah Hagi shared screenshots last week resurfacing Gascón's multiple offensive comments in years-old, since-deleted posts on X, the actress — who is the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an acting award at the Oscars — defended herself in a new interview with CNN.

In the televised interview, Gascón offered her “most sincere apologies to all the people who may have felt offended," and added that she intends to keep herself in contention for Best Actress through to the March 2 Academy Awards ceremony.

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“I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone," Gascón told the network. "I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am."

Variety reported at the time that, in other since-deleted posts, Gascón made troubling comments about the murder of George Floyd, diversity at the Oscars, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the COVID-19 vaccine.

"More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M,” Gascón purportedly wrote in 2021, per the outlet. “Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”

Gascón's past comments did not sit well with many people online, specifically as they arose after the Emilia Pérez actress spoke about harassment online with regard to the Best Actress category race against fellow nominee, I'm Still Here star Fernanda Torres.

The posts included language that disparaged Islam, including a 2016 message that read "Islam is becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured," according to a translation included in one of Hagi's screengrabs.

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According to a Google-provided translation of another post from 2021 that was still up prior to Gascón deactivating her X account, the 52-year-old wrote: "The West should ban Islam and any political or religious manifestation that violates human rights and universal values. Paradoxically, there is no other way to enforce rules than to have rules and enforce them." A threaded post continued, "Obviously, I will never defend Islam or any religion. They all try to destroy human rights in favor of their stupid beliefs without sense or reason, ALL OF THEM. Human beings are imbeciles by nature and religions are proof of that. STOP RELIGIONS."

Shortly after controversy erupted over Gascón's past posts, a representative for the Spanish performer provided Entertainment Weekly with a statement via email: "I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain," the statement read. "All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness."

The actress' Emilia Pérez costar Zoe Saldaña, a Best Supporting Actress nominee, also commented on Gascón’s posts. "I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad," she said when asked about the controversy during a Q&A in London last Friday, per The Hollywood Reporter. 

"It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group," Saldaña said of the contents of Gascón’s tweets. "I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity. And it just saddens me."

Following her initial email statement, Gascón shared a lengthy response to the controversy on Instagram. According to a rough Google translation from Spanish, Gascón lamented the developments and maintained that she is not racist.

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"I recognize, through tears, that they have already won, they have achieved their objective, to stain my existence with lies or things taken out of context," she wrote. "Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a racist (you will be surprised when you find out that one of the most important people in my current life and that I love the most is Muslim) nor any of the things for which I have been judged and condemned without trial and without option to explain his true intention; I have always fought for a more just society and for a world of freedom, peace and love. I will never support wars, religious extremism or the oppression of races and peoples."

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which oversees the Oscars, does not make its standards of conduct publicly available, the organization's website does provide a general overview of Oscar campaign regulations, which states: "Academy’s Standards of Conduct are essential to the Academy’s mission and reflective of our values. If any member is found by the Board of Governors to have violated these standards or to have compromised the integrity of the Academy by one’s actions, the Board of Governors may take any disciplinary action permitted by the Academy’s Bylaws, including membership suspension or expulsion."

EW has reached out to representatives for the Academy and Gascón for additional comment.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly