Karla Sofia Gascón took to social media to address the ongoing backlash she has received since a series of controversial X posts resurfaced online.
“THEY ALREADY WON. The first thing I would like to do is to sincerely apologize to all those who have felt bad about the way I have expressed myself at any stage of my life,” Gascón, 52, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, February 1, as translated from Spanish by Us Weekly.
“I have many things to learn in this world, [the] forms [in which I learn] are my main flaw,” she continued. “Life has taught me something I never wanted to learn: it is clear to me that as much as your message is one, without using the correct words, it becomes another.”
Gascón went on to note that, since the release of Emilia Pérez, she has gone from “living a normal life to a life at the top of my profession in just six months.” She added that now her “responsibility is very great,” because “my voice not only belongs to me but to many people who feel represented and hopeful by or with me.”
Gascón received widespread backlash in January 2025 when past social media posts resurfaced online, ranging from 2016 to 2020 and later. In some of the posts, Gascón made derogatory comments targeting Muslim people in her native Spain as well as George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in 2020. Gascón has since deleted her X account. Among the posts was even an apparent dig at her Emilia Pérez costar Selena Gomez.
“I cannot repair my past actions, I can only say that today I am not the same person as 10 or 20 years ago, that although I had not committed any crime, I was not perfect either, I am not even now. I just try to learn and be a better person every day,” Gascón’s Saturday post continued.
“I recognize, through tears, that they have already won, they have achieved their goal, to tarnish my existence with lies or things taken out of context,” she said. “Anyone who knows me knows that I am not racist (they will be surprised when they discover that one of the most important people in my current life and the one I love the most is Muslim) nor any of the things for which they have judged and condemned me without trial and without the option to explain their true intention; I have always fought for a more just society and for a world of freedom, peace and love. I will never support wars, religious extremism or the oppression of races and peoples.”
Emilia Pérez is a musical drama starring Gascón as the leader of a Mexican cartel who fakes her death and transitions to a woman. She is the first transgender woman to be nominated for a Best Actress award at both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.
“They have created posts as if it were me, insulting even my colleagues, things that I wrote to glorify as if they were criticism, jokes as if they were reality, words that without the background only seem like hate. All so that I do not win anything and sink,” Gascón wrote.
She concluded, “My mother told me something beautiful yesterday: I don’t care if you win anything, I just want you to be well and not get hurt. ‘Mom, life has put me here to send a message of hope and love to this world, and I’m going to fulfill it.’”
In addition to Gascón’s recent controversy, Emilia Pérez is fielding a significant amount of criticism from several communities, including Spanish-speaking viewers who have critiqued the film’s stilted dialogue and representation of Mexico. The film was notably left out of the nominations for the GLAAD Media Awards in January, with the LGBTQ+ non-profit calling the film “a step backward for trans representation.”
Prior to her Saturday statement, Gascón apologized for the resurfaced posts in a statement via Netflix.
“As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain,” she shared in a statement via Netflix, per the Associated Press. “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
Gascón’s Emilia Pérez costar Zoe Saldaña also addressed the controversy during a Q&A in London on Friday, January 31, saying in part, “I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is 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.”
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