Karla Sofia Gascon says she will not withdraw from Oscar contention over past comments: ‘I have not committed any crime’

Karla Sofía Gascón in Mexico City in January 2025. (Medios y Media/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, the star of “Emilia Pérez,” is staying in the race for best actress despite controversy over offensive social media posts.

In an interview with CNN’s Juan Carlos Arciniegas, Gascón, who made history last month as the first openly transgender actress nominated for an Oscar in an acting category, once again offered her “most sincere apologies to all the people who may have felt offended.”

“I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone. I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am,” Gascón told CNN.

The controversy arose after journalist Sarah Hagi shared screenshots of Gascón’s old social media posts, in which she was critical of Muslim culture, the death of George Floyd and the direction of the Oscars.

Gascón, who deactivated her account on X following the controversy, apologized this week for her posts. “I want to address the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused harm,” Gascón said in a statement shared with CNN.

“As a member of a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and deeply regret having caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe that light will always triumph over darkness.”

In one of the posts, originally written in Spanish, Gascón commented on the Floyd case, who died in 2020 after an encounter with police in Minneapolis. “I really believe that very few ever cared about George Floyd, a scammer drug addict,” she wrote in part.

The actress also criticized the 2021 Oscars ceremony, held amid the Covid-19 pandemic. “The #Oscars are increasingly resembling an independent and vindicative film awards ceremony, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration, or March 8th,” she posted at the time.

In her interview with CNN, Gascón said she didn’t “recognize” some of the posts that have resurfaced.

“I have been judged, condemned, sacrificed, crucified, and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself,” Gascón said.

She denied writing a since-deleted 2022 tweet in which Selena Gomez, her co-star in “Emilia Pérez,” was described derogatorily.

“It’s not mine, of course, I have never said anything about my colleague, I would never refer to her that way,” Gascón said.

Gascón is nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her role in “Emilia Pérez,” a Netflix musical and crime drama that tells the story of a Mexican drug trafficker seeking gender reassignment surgery, which has also generated much controversy, especially in Mexico.

Jacques Audiard, the French director of “Emilia Pérez,” defended the film in an interview with CNN en Español in January, saying, “If there are things that seem scandalous to Mexicans in ‘Emilia,’ I apologize.”