Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón has said her controversial series of tweets were taken out of context, stressing that she is “not racist”.
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Earlier this week, the actor apologised after it emerged that she had posted a series of tweets showing controversial opinions on Muslims, the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the Oscars. In one 2020 post, she posted a picture of a Muslim family with a woman in a burka, describing the clothing tradition as “deeply disgusting”.
In another, shared a few days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer, she wrote “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler”. In 2021, she also wrote about the Oscars: “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”.
Gascón, who has now deleted her X account, became the first transgender woman to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination earlier this month for her role as the title character in Jacques Audiard’s tale about a Mexican lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) who is hired to help a cartel drug lord (Gascón) with her transition.
Now, the Spanish actor has written a lengthy Instagram post in which she reiterates a previous apology and seeks to argue that her comments have been “taken out of context”.
Writing in Spanish (translation via Deadline), she said: “What I would like to do first is offer my sincerest apologies to those who have felt harmed for my way of expressing myself at any stage of my life. I have a lot to learn in this world, this being my main flaw. Life has taught me something I never wanted to learn: it is clear to me that no matter how much your message is one [thing], without using the correct words, it becomes another.”
“I cannot fix my past actions, I can only say that today I am not the same person from 10 or 20 years ago, that although I have not committed any crime, I am not perfect either, nor am I now. I only try to learn and be a better person every day.”
“I recognize, with tears, that they have already won, they have achieved their objective, to sully, with lies or things taken out of context my existence,” she added. “Anyone who knows me knows that I am not racist (they will be surprised when they discover that one of the most important people in my current life and whom I love most is Muslim) nor any of the things for which they have judged and convicted me without trial and without the option to explain their real intention; I have always fought for a more just society and for a world of freedom, of peace and of love. I will never support wars, religious extremism or oppression of races and peoples.”
It is Gascón’s second time speaking about the scandal, after an initial apology. “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt,” Gascón said. “As someone in a marginalised 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”.
Her co-star Zoe Saldaña has also spoken about the tweets, saying: “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.”
In a three-star review of Emilia Pérez, which received a total of 13 Oscar nominations, NME wrote: “Whilst its blend of influences make Emilia Perez unique, they also make it exhausting. The personal impact of Emilia’s transition is undercut by a ludicrous song with lyrics about vaginoplasty, any grittiness from the drug cartel thread gets smoothed over by the schmaltzy sentimentality that surrounds it and the flashes of real visual flair act are bogged down by the twisting, tiresome plot.”
“You’ve probably never seen a movie like Emilia Perez before – and whilst there is enough meat in the performances to make you somewhat glad you did, you might not want to again.”
The post ‘Emilia Pérez’ star Karla Sofía Gascón says her controversial tweets were taken out of context: “I am not racist” appeared first on NME.
