Emilia Pérez Star Karla Sofía Gascón Apologizes for Offensive Tweets
Actress, Oscar nominee and Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón deactivated her X/Twitter account this morning after issuing an official apology for a series of ignorant and deeply offensive tweets about the murder of George Floyd, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ movement, and diversity at the Oscars.
Gascón is nominated for Best Actress at the 2025 Academy Awards for her role in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez (2024), positioning her to become the first ever openly transgender woman to potentially win Best Actress. However, the unearthed tweets have suddenly cast a serious pall over the already deeply polarizing film, which has drawn criticism for both its portrayal of transgender transition and Mexican culture.
In a post about Georoge Floyd, the actress wrote: “I really 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.”
Gascón also made over a dozen Islamaphobic statements, using racial slurs to describe Muslims and even calling for a ban of Islam, claiming that the religion contradicts Europeans values and violates human rights. In 2016, the actress posted on X/Twitter claiming that “Islam is becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.” She also called for the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain, taking to X/Twitter to ask “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.”
In 2020, just after letting the internet know what a “swindler” George Floyd was, the actress returned to X/Twitter. “Sorry, is it just my impression or are there more and 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,” she posted Nov. 23, 2020. “Maybe next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council issued a statement to The Wrap calling her comments “hurtful, offensive and shocking,” ultimately inspiring Gascón’s apology. In regard to the LGBTQ+ movement, Gascón 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.”