Twenty-four hours into a controversy that has upended the 2025 Oscar race, best-actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón has sent The Hollywood Reporter a long statement explaining why she chose to deactivate her X account after critics surfaced inflammatory old tweets of hers weighing in on, among other things, the 2020 murder of George Floyd and ensuing racial reckoning, as well as decrying Muslim immigration in her native Spain and calling for a ban of “religions that go against European values.”
Amid the ensuing scandal, Gascón—a prolific presence on social media—shut down her X account on Friday morning. “I’m sorry, but I can no longer allow this campaign of hate and misinformation to affect me and my family, so at their request I am closing my account on X,” writes the Emilia Pérez star. “I have been threatened with death, insulted, abused and harassed to the point of exhaustion. I have a wonderful daughter to protect, whom I love madly and who supports me in everything.”
Gascón, the first openly transgender performer to be nominated, has faced abuse and death threats from anti-trans online factions since sharing the best actress prize at Cannes for her role as a Mexico cartel leader who transitions to live life as a woman.
Her campaign has been framed in a progressive light, giving the Academy the chance to protest the ascendancy of anti-trans sentiment under the new Trump administration. “Light will always triumph over darkness,” has been her awards season mantra. But the revelation of Gascón’s incendiary past positions has thrown her campaign into disarray.
“I have defended each and every one of the minorities in this world and supported any event against racism, freedom of religion or homophobia, in the same way that I have criticized the hypocrisy that underlies them, because the first thing I am self-critical of is myself,” Gascón writes.
In her statement, Gascón apologizes for “erroneous” past opinions, chalking them up in part to the toxicity of social media. She also suggests that the voices that have aligned against her could be part of a deliberate effort to scuttle her Oscar chances. “Forgive me because I keep going from one side to the other and I cannot be responding to every single thing you bring up to try to sink me,” she writes, adding, “It is clear that there is something very dark behind it.”
She signs off her missive with “NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO,” a Japanese phrase central to Nichiren Buddhism, which she says she has practiced for more than 10 years. It translates as “Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra.”
Her full statement—send “between tears” she tells THR—is below, translated from Spanish.
I’m sorry, but I can no longer allow this campaign of hate and misinformation to affect neither my family nor me anymore, so at their request I am closing my account on X.
I have been threatened with death, insulted, abused and harassed to the point of exhaustion.
I have a wonderful daughter to protect, whom I love madly and who supports me in everything.
I had long ago made the decision to close a social network [sic], which has taken a terrible turn, in which I have also sometimes fallen, and for which I apologize.
As part of this society, I have expressed my disagreement or agreement with all the related issues that have touched me and of which I have had an opinion, often erroneous, which has changed throughout my own experience. I have always used my social media as a diary, reflections or notes, to later create stories or characters, not as something that would be scrutinized down to the last of its 140 characters, since sometimes I, myself, am not even aware of having written something negative.
I have defended each and every one of the minorities in this world and supported freedom of religion and any action against racism and homophobia in the same way that I have criticized the hypocrisy that underlies them, because the first thing I am critical of is myself.
You will never hear me support a war, an injustice, extremism or applaud anyone who oppresses other human beings.
Perhaps my words are not correct, many times due to ignorance or pure mistake. I apologize again if anyone has ever felt offended or in the future.
I am a human being who also made, makes and will make mistakes from which I will learn. I am not perfect. Taking my words out of context or manipulating them to hurt me is something I am not responsible for.
I am only responsible for what I say, not for what others say I say or what others interpret from what I say.
I hope to have the opportunity to give a more extensive explanation at some point.
Forgive me because I keep going from one side to the other and I cannot be responding to every single thing you bring up to try to sink me.
But if you want, you can continue attacking me as if I were responsible for hunger and wars in the world. I apologize again if I have ever offended anyone with my words in my life.
I am only Karla Sofía Gascón, an actress who has reached where very few have thanks to her effort and work, without stealing or harming anyone in this world, just trying to get them to let me live in peace, love and respect, something that seems to bother a lot of people in this world.
It is clear that there is something very dark behind it.
But I tell you something: “The more you try to sink me, the stronger it will make me. The greater the victory will be.”
Please forgive me once again if any of my words hurt you.
Sincerely, Karla.
NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO
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