Yahoo Lifestyle Zoe Saldaña Addresses Karla Sofía Gascón Controversy As She Campaigns For ‘Emilia Pérez’: “It Makes Me Really Sad”
The fallout from Emilia Pérez actor Karla Sofía Gascón’s past racist and Islamophobic tweets is ongoing, and Friday evening, one of her co-stars, Zoe Saldaña, coyly addressed the scandal for the first time during a Q&A session in London, though she didn’t directly mention Gascón or the controversial posts.
“I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” Saldaña said on the panel when quizzed on Gascón’s posts. The Oscar-nominated actor was sat next to Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard during the Q&A session hosted by journalist Edith Bowman.
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Saldaña didn’t directly mention Gascón or the controversial posts in the comment, as pair are in London continuing their awards campaigning for the film despite the recent scandal.
She continued: “It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group. I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them were about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me.”
The Avatar actor, Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Emilia Pérez, continued to say she was saddened that the film was currently hit with this “setback” but thanked audience members for continuing to “show up” for the film.
“The message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important,” she added.
You can read the whole transcript of Saldaña’s statement below.
Gascón deleted her X account and published a second apology earlier this afternoon in which she said she was “deeply sorry” for old posts in which she voiced extreme and racist views on Muslims, diversity at the Oscars, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the death of George Floyd as she scrambles to shore up her Oscar campaign.
In a 2021 post, she wrote: “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. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
In a post about Floyd, she said: “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys Without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”
In other tweets reviewed by Deadline before deactivating her account, Gascón referred to gay people as “faggots” and lamented the rhetoric of some in the LGBTQ+ movement.
Per a Google translation of Spanish, she wrote: “What a disservice all these trans and LGB clowns do… by following the discourse of the extreme right, the ones with no one and all kinds of reactionaries.
They remind me of black people with whips making their brothers pick cotton. Sons of a bitch.”
She also took aim at Islamic culture in her native Spain and suggested Islam should be banned.
Among many inflammatory tweets, she called for the Moroccan Spanish community to be expelled en masse: “How many times history would have to expel the Moors from Spain… we have not yet realised what this threat of civilisations means, which constantly attacks the freedom and coherence of the individual. It is not racism, it is Islam.”
In a statement through Netflix, Gascón said: “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. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
Here’s Saldaña’s full statement:
I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad. It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.
I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was 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. It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now. But I’m happy that you’re all here and that you’re all still showing up for Emilia [Perez] because the message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important. And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message. That’s all we can say right now. Thank you.
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