Emilia Pérez star faces backlash with resurfaced tweets amid ‘Oscar violation’
Karla Sofia Gascón, the Oscar-nominated Emilia Pérez star, is facing backlash for resurfaced posts on X targeting Muslims, George Floyd and Oscar diversity.
The 52-year-old actor, who made history as the first out trans person to be nominated for an Academy Award in the best actress category, is facing mounting criticism for historic – and recent – comments.
The actor rose to global fame as the titular character in Netflix’s acclaimed movie musical also starring Selena Gomez and Zoë Saldaña about a Mexican drug boss who starts afresh after transitioning into a woman.
The 13-time Academy Award-nominated movie film itself has been dubbed by some viewers as ‘one of the worst films ever’ with concerns over its representation of Mexican culture and the trans community.
Now – in the lead-up to the Oscars on March 2 – the main star has fallen into hot water.
Earlier this week, she was forced to defend comments made about fellow nominee, I’m Still Here star, Fernanda Torres.
Now she is being slammed for historic tweets against Muslims, disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement and pushing back against diversity at the Oscars ceremony.
Shortly after the interview sparked discourse, culture critic Sarah Hagi posted screenshots of tweets written by Gascón, under her X account @karsiagascon, that call Islam a ‘hotbed of infection’ and people from multiple faiths ‘morons that violate human rights.’
One post from November 22, 2020, reads: ‘I’m Sorry, Is it just my impression or is there more Muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic,’ per a translation by Variety.
Another post from September 2020 which featured an image of a woman wearing a burqa, wrote: ‘Islam is marvellous, 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 August 2021, she cast the net wide, writing: ‘I am so sick of so much of this s**t, of islam, of christianity, of catholicism and of all the fucking beliefs of morons that violate human rights.’
Further posts then resurfaced including one about murdered Black man George Floyd, whose death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, in which she calls him a ‘drug addict swindler’.
The post continued: ‘…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.’
Finally, during the 2021 Oscars ceremony, held during the Covid pandemic, Gascón 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.’
Nomadland secured the Oscar for best picture that year with films like Minari and The Trial of the Chicago 7 also nominated.
Many people have expressed their disgust at the Spanish actor’s views.
‘Curious about how the emilia perez cast and academy voters will respond to karla sofia gascon’s islamophobic and vile tweets.
‘The fact that these tweets span years, and there are so many of them, prove that these are her consistent and blatant beliefs,’ @bymeg wrote on X.
‘Sorry but this woman doesn’t deserve an Oscar,’ @zahrarahim commented.
‘They lowkey need to rescind her nomination …’ @virtualngels shared.
The vast majority of Gascón’s criticised posts have since been deleted from her account.
Metro has reached out to The Academy, Netflix and Karla Sofia Gascón’s representatives for comment but has not immediately heard back.
What did Karla Sofia Gascón say about fellow Oscar nominee Fernanda Torres?
In an edited clip from an interview with the Brazillian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Gascon seemingly aimed fire at Torres’ campaign for the Oscars.
After criticising social media teams for ‘trying to diminish [Emilia Perez’s teams] work she continued:’You don’t need to tear down someone’s work to highlight another’s. I have never, at any point, said anything bad about Fernanda Torres or her movie.
‘However, there are people working with Fernanda Torres tearing me and ‘Emilia Pérez’ down. That speaks more about their movie than mine.’
Although there were questions over whether this violated Oscar rules by directly speaking about another nominee, Metro understands there is no promotional regulation violation.
Gascon released a statement to the publication later clarifying her comments, saying she was not talking about those ‘directly associated with Torres’.
‘I am an enormous fan of Fernanda Torres and it has been wonderful getting to know her over the past few months.
‘In my recent comments, I was referencing the toxicity and violent hate speech on social media that I sadly continue to experience. Fernanda has been a wonderful ally, and no one directly associated with her has been anything but supportive and hugely generous,’ she said.
Elsewhere in the viral interview, she described Torres as a ‘wonderful woman and an amazing actress’ and congratulated her for the Golden Globe victory.
Earlier this week Torres also released an apology for wearing blackface in a sketch 17 years ago.
The Oscars 2025 has faced several troubles over recent weeks. Earlier this month wildfires in Los Angeles caused a delay in the nominations and figures such as Stephen King called for the ceremony to be cancelled.
The Brutalist director Brady Corbet was last week made to release a statement about the use of AI in the best picture frontrunner after one of the film’s editors explained AI software was used for Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent in one scene.
As well as accusations of GenerativeAI use in one of the film’s architectural sequences which Corbet has denied.
Anora also faced criticism after both filmmaker Sean Baker and lead star Mikey Madison explained they did not use an intimacy coordinator during filming.
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