Karla Sofía Gascón breaks down in tears during CNN interview: ‘I am not a racist’
Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón has seen her Oscar campaign derailed by controversy over her past comments. (CNN)
Emilia Pérez trans star Karla Sofía Gascón repeatedly broke down in tears and insisted she’s “not a racist” in an hour-long interview with CNN after a series of offensive tweets were discovered.
Gascón, the first ever out trans actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Emilia Pérez, was roundly 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.
The 52-year-old has previously stated that she is “deeply sorry” for the now-deleted tweets. In an interview with CNN on Sunday (2 February), she argued the tweets shouldn’t define her.
Speaking to interviewer Juan Carlos Arciniegas, trans star Karla Sofía Gascón pleaded her innocence, adding that she relates to the struggles of Black people.
“I feel and very much identify with the people who were thrown off buses for the colour of their skin, with the people who did not want them to study at university, for the people who were hated simply for existing, like how I am hated in this moment,” she said.
At several points throughout the interview she was reduced to tears. She also shared that she has a personal relationship with a Muslim woman who has taught her to understand more than she previously did.
She then spoke about her brother who died when she was 20, stating that the Christmas accident led her to have “a resentment toward human beings of all spectrums because it seems to me that human beings are something deplorable but something in which I have incredible hope.”
‘Before being here my post was viewed by three people’
The actress added that she has been subjected to hate herself for being trans and has never “stopped receiving hate, death threats, insults, abuses”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Gascón was questioned about her resurfaced George Floyd tweet, in which she described Floyd, whose death at the hands of police sparked global Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, as a “drug addict swindler”.
She admitted that she had treated social media as “unfortunately more like a diary” filled with “reflections as opposed to something that can influence someone, because before being here my post was viewed by three people.”
The star claimed throughout that her words were taken out of context and misrepresented.
“I am only responsible for what my heart feels,” she concluded.
The interview reiterated points from Karla Sofía Gascón’s lengthy Instagram statement in which apologised “to all those who have felt wrong by my way of expressing myself at any stage of my life” and stated, “I’m not racist”.
In another post the trans actress admitted: “I have a lot of things to improve in this world, my way of expressing myself [is] one of them.”
“But I will not apologise for something I am not, never,” she added.
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