Karla Sofía Gascón ‘deeply sorry’ for offensive tweets about Muslims and George Floyd

Oscar-nominated Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón has stated that she is “deeply sorry” after a number of offensive tweets resurfaced. 

Gascón, who last week became the first ever out trans actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Emilia Pérez, was highly criticised after a number of posts on Twitter/X resurfaced expressing anti-Islamic sentiment, as well as posts targeting George Floyd and diversity at the Oscars. 

Several of the posts, uncovered by journalist Sarah Hagi, have now been deleted. Many contained highly offensive language about Muslims, including referring to Muslims with the ableist “r slur”. 

One post from 2020, that currently remains online, featured a Muslim family in a restaurant including a woman wearing a burqa. 

“Islam is marvelous, without any machismo. Women are respected, and when they are so respected they are left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves. Although they dress this way for their own enjoyment. How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY,” Gascón, 52, wrote in Spanish.

Uncovering a dozen social media posts, Hagi stated: “This isn’t even all of them… I’m not exaggerating when I say there are so many Tweets spanning years.”

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, 2025

One post from 2020, shared shortly after George Floyd was killed by a police officer, inspiring Black Lives Matter protests across the US, described Floyd as a “drug addict swindler”.

Gascón wrote: “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.”

Another of her posts, commenting on the 2021 Oscars ceremony, read: “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 2019 post that remains online, Gascón also took aim at Miley Cyrus, commenting on photos of her being spotted kissing Kaitlynn Carter with the phrase: “Evil, horrible, unnatural, lesbian perversion”.

After many of the posts were deleted, Gascón issued an apology to Variety.

“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt,” she said. 

“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.”

Karla Sofía Gascón is nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actress category, and will compete for the award alongside Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, The Substance star Demi Moore, Mickey Madison in Anora, and Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here. 

The Academy Awards has not publicly commented on Gascón’s social media posts. 

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