Step aside, Will Smith slap – this year’s Oscars controversy is here even before the ceremony has begun.
“Emilia Perez” star Karla Sofía Gascón, 52, made history as the first openly transgender actress to get a “best actress” Oscar nomination, but now she’s under fire as her past social media comments have resurfaced.
The Spanish star’s controversial posts on X, formerly Twitter, have since been deleted, but they were preserved in screen shots shared by journalist Sarah Hagi earlier this week.
According to Variety, in a 2021 post reacting to that year’s Oscars, 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.”
In another post from 2020 that has since been deleted, she allegedly wrote, “Is it just my impression or are 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.”
In another since deleted post, according to USA Today, she allegedly 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. They’re all wrong.”
“First out trans actress to receive an Oscar nomination is a massive bigot” feels like a Ryan Murphy subplot,” one person joked on Twitter following the controversy.
Another observer commented, “Insane that Netflix has the money and power to get a trans woman an Oscar nomination but didn’t put any of those resources into discovering that actress’ violently racist public Twitter.”
This isn’t the first time the Oscars has had a celebrity tweet controversy. In 2018, comedian Kevin Hart was announced as the Oscars host, but he stepped down just two days after getting the gig, following a controversy with resurfaced homophobic tweets.
Earlier this week, in a post on Jan. 29, one day before the resurfaced-tweet controversy, Gascón called herself “Public Enemy No. 1.”
Translated to English, she wrote, “Haters who try to invent a new controversy or a new way to insult me every day. That’s good because it awakens neurons, and with that maybe one day they’ll be able to understand that hatred won’t get them anywhere.”
Following the backlash to her social media posts, Gascón told People in a statement on Jan. 20, “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.”
The Post reached out to Gascón for comment.
“Emilia Pérez” led the pack at this years Oscars, with 13 nominations. It set the record for the most-nominated non-English language film.
Gascón’s competition in the “best actress” category include Demi Moore (“The Substance”), Mikey Madison (“Anora”), Cynthia Erivo ( “Wicked”), and Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”).
Earlier this week, Torres faced her own controversy when a clip of her wearing blackface for a comedy skit resurfaced. The scene was from the Brazilian TV show “Fantastico” 17 years ago and she’s since apologized.
The 2025 Oscars will be hosted by Conan O’Brien and air Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.m. on ABC.
