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Karla Sofía Gascón won't drop out of Oscars race amid controversies

Karla Sofía Gascón won't drop out of Oscars race amid controversies

Karla Sofía Gascón
Ismael Rosas/Pixelnews/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Karla Sofía Gascón at a premiere event for 'Emilia Pérez.'

The Emilia Pérez star claimed that many of her former X posts (formerly tweets) have been misinterpreted and misrepresented.

Despite growing controversy surrounding posts shared by Emilia Pérez lead star Karla Sofía Gascón on X (formerly Twitter), the actress has decided not to drop out from her Best Actress nomination at the 2025 Academy Awards.

Several posts shared on Gascón's official X profile in the late 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s have resurfaced — showing Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, and various controversial opinions. After making history as the first out trans actor to be nominated for an acting category at the Oscars, Gascón is now under fire for those statements.

The Emilia Pérez star has issued a few statements addressing these controversies. However, those statements have mostly been met with criticism by people who don't consider them "apologies."

In her latest interview, Gascón sat with Juan Carlos Arciniegas for CNN en Español and argued that many of her resurfaced X posts had been misrepresented, misinterpreted, or, in some cases, completely made-up.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gascón set up this interview with CNN en Español on her own — not through Netflix, which owns the Emilia Pérez film and has managed/financed its award season campaign for the past few months.

The interview starts with Gascón saying, "My most sincere apologies to all the people who may have felt offended by the ways I express myself in my past, in my present, and in my future." When Arciniegas asked if she had considered dropping out of the race, Gascón answered firmly that she won't bow out of the campaign for Best Actress at the 2025 Oscars.

"I cannot renounce a nomination because what I have done is a job, and what is being valued is my acting work," Gascón said. "I cannot renounce a nomination, either, because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone. I am not a racist nor am I anything that all these people have taken upon themselves to try to make others believe that I am."

Gascón added that some of these screenshots of X posts were fabricated, particularly one where she seemed to be criticizing her eventual Emilia Pérez co-star, Selena Gomez, calling her a "rich rat."

"Of course, that's not mine, Gascón said, denying that the post about Gomez is real. "I've never said anything about my partner," she said. "I would never refer to her that way."

Several X posts from Gascón were also critical of religion — especially Islam — with one 2020 post reading, "Islam is marvelous, without any machismo. Women are respected, and when they are so respected, they are left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves. Although they dress this way for their own enjoyment. How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY."

In the interview, Gascón said that she was only criticizing radical Islam, even if she did not specify that in the X posts.

One of the most controversial X posts that contributed to this controversy was one in which Gascón criticized George Floyd just days after his murder, calling him a "drug addict and hustler."

Gascón told CNN en Español that she was trying to point out the hypocrisy of him being elevated to a symbol of oppression. "He was a person who had been in a very difficult situation in his life and no one had helped him, and suddenly he became a symbol of a cause and everyone loved him," the actress said. "But for someone to think that… that I have ever insulted a person because of their skin color... I do not allow that to anyone, to anyone."

Gascón also posted a statement on Instagram that read: "Neither I nor my family are racist, ever — quite the opposite."

The Emilia Pérez star says that it was wrong for people to assume "that some tweets highlighting the hypocrisy, racist, and evil that people in this world were my feelings and not a complaint." She insisted that those remarks were "an exaggerated joke" and an "attack on an institution."

"They have translated everything literally without wanting to understand the background, and they believed other false tweets," Gascón continued. "Everyone has assumed that they were racist tweets glorifying Nazism without the complete chain of posts being visible to be able to find an explanation for the writings. What a shame. I can't believe that anyone can think that I have ever in my life praised the figure of any dictator or Nazism, when precisely I can't stop denouncing that we must be careful. We are returning to those dark times with people who copy their behaviors."

Gascón also heavily suggested that these resurfaced X posts could've been coordinated and timed to undermine her Oscar campaign.

"What a coincidence that I have been trying to send a message of hope to the world for nine months, and just three days ago, coincidentally, I am the worst person in the world," Gascón said. "I have many things to improve in this world, my way of expressing myself is one of them, but I am not going to ask forgiveness for something I am not. Never."

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Mey Rude

Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.

Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.