At some point in life, a past event can come back to bite us in the face, and that is the current state Karla Sofía Gascón finds herself in.
Gascón is the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and she is best known for starring in Emilia Pérez.
Her apology comes after a now-deleted controversial past tweet resurfaced and went viral last week.
The tweets seem to disparage Muslims who live in her native Spain and label the late George Floyd “a drug addict and hustler.”
it’s so insane that karla sofía gascón still has these tweets up. straight up have never seen tweets this racist from someone actively campaigning to win an ACADEMY AWARD. there are more than a dozen… pic.twitter.com/1rcNzkJXuo
— sarah hagi (@KindaHagi) January 30, 2025Related stories
In the now-deleted resurfaced Twitter post, Gascón’s post was written in Spanish, which has since been translated into English and is said to have read as follows:
“Sorry, is it just me, or are there more Muslims in Spain? Every time I 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.”
In another post, Gascón shared a thread about her thoughts on George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the nationwide demonstrations that occurred in response to his murder at the hands of police.
Karla Sofía Gascón wrote:
“Honestly, I 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 … without rights and consider policemen to be assassins,” the Golden Globe nominee wrote. “They’re all wrong.”
Gascón went on to say that
“Too many things to reflect on regarding the behavior of our species every time an event occurs. Perhaps it is no longer a question of racism but of social classes that feel threatened by each other. Maybe that’s the only real difference.”
Another post suggested that the Oscar nominee also criticized the Academy for its 2021 awards show ceremony, the first following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Sofía is said to have written,
“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 wrote. “Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
However, Gascón has issued several apologies through various mediums.
In one of the statements obtained by USA TODAY on Thursday, Gascón stated that:
“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.”
In another lengthy one shared with The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, she is said to have said,
“I’m sorry, but I can no longer allow this campaign of hate and misinformation to affect me and my family, so at their request I am closing my account on X.”
“I have been threatened with death, insulted, abused, and harassed to the point of exhaustion. I have a wonderful daughter to protect, whom I love madly and who supports me in everything,” she continued.
“I have defended each and every one of the minorities in this world and supported freedom of religion and any action against racism and homophobia in the same way that I have criticized the hypocrisy that underlies them, because the first thing I am critical of is myself.”
Karla went on to say that,
“Perhaps my words are not correct, many times due to ignorance or pure mistake. I apologize again if anyone has ever felt offended or in the future.”
There is also a much longer one on her Instagram account written in Spanish but can be translated on the app.
