Zoe Saldana Addresses Karla Sofia Gascon Controversy As She Campaigns For ‘Emilia Perez’: “It Makes Me Really Sad”

Zoe Saldaña is nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in 'Emilia Perez.'
Zoe Saldana Addresses Karla Sofia Gascon Controversy As She Campaigns For ‘Emilia Perez’: “It Makes Me Really Sad”

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January 31, 2025 2:38pmServices to share this page. Zoe Saldana speaks at the London Film Festival, October 2024. Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

The fallout from Emilia Perez actor Karla Sofía Gascón’s past racist and Islamophobic tweets is ongoing, and this evening, one of her co-stars, Zoe Saldaña, coyly addressed the scandal for the first time during a Q&A session in London.

“I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” Saldaña said this evening when quizzed on Gascón’s tweets. The Oscar-nominated actor was sat next to Emilia Perez director Jacques Audiard during the Q&A session and she doesn’t directly mention Gascón or the controversial posts. The pair are in London continuing their awards campagining for the film amid the recent scandal.

Related Stories NewsKarla Sofía Gascón Says People Around Fellow Oscar Nominee Fernanda Torres "Talk Badly About Me & 'Emilia Pérez'"

Saldaña continued: “It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group. I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them were about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me.” 

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The Avatar actor, who is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Emilia Perez, continued to say she was saddened that the film was currently hit with this “setback” but thanked audience members for continuing to “show up” for the film. 

“The message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important,” she added. You can read the whole transcript of Saldaña’s statement below. 

Gascón deleted her X account and published a second apology this afternoon in which she said she was “deeply sorry” for old posts in which she voiced extreme and racist views on Muslims, diversity at the Oscars, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the death of George Floyd.

In 2021, she 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 a post about George Floyd, she said: “I really 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 monkeys Without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”

In other tweets reviewed by Deadline before deactivating her account, Gascón referred to gay people as “faggots” and lamented the rhetoric of some in the LGBTQ+ movement.

Per a Google translation of Spanish, she wrote: “What a disservice all these trans and LGB clowns do… by following the discourse of the extreme right, the ones with no one and all kinds of reactionaries.They remind me of black people with whips making their brothers pick cotton. Sons of a bitch.”

She also took aim at Muslims’ dress, language and culture in her native Spain and suggested Islam should be banned.

Among many inflammatory tweets, she called for the Moroccan Spanish community to be expelled en masse: “How many times history would have to expel the Moors from Spain… we have not yet realised what this threat of civilisations means, which constantly attacks the freedom and coherence of the individual. It is not racism, it is Islam.”

Gascón’s account was still live as recently as a couple of hours ago but appears to have been deactivated as she scrambles to shore up her Oscar campaign. Gascón has a shot at making history by becoming the first openly transgender woman to win the Best Actress Academy Award.

In a statement through Netflix, Gascón had said: “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.”

Statement

I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad. It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.

I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me. It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now. But I’m happy that you’re all here and that you’re all still showing up for Emilia [Perez] because the message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important. And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message. That’s all we can say right now. Thank you.

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