Astoundingly, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is still trying to defend herself in the wake of the 2025 Oscars season’s biggest scandal.
Indeed, ever since journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed a trove of offensive past tweets — mostly dating from 2019 to 2024 — the Best Actress nominee has unleashed an unceasing stream of quasi-apologetic, mostly-defensive statements.
The first apology arrived on Thursday night, and it was quickly followed by a longer statement on Friday morning that, amidst several attempts to apologize further, revealed that she’d deleted her Twitter account and insinuated that the resurfaced tweets are part of a coordinated campaign to hurt her Oscar chances.
In that statement, Karla also claimed that “They have created posts as if it were me insulting even my colleagues” — which was presumably alluding to an alleged tweet in which she called Emilia Pérez costar Selena Gomez a “rich rat.”
As if all of that wasn’t enough, Karla also apparently taped an hour-long interview with CNN en Español that aired Saturday evening — which, as the Hollywood Reporter reports, Karla apparently set up “on her own without the involvement of anyone working on the film.”
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During the interview, Karla broke down in tears multiple times as she — in line with her previous statements — alternated between offering contrition and defending the tweets themselves.
In regards to the alleged Selena tweet, Karla claimed that it was “not mine.” “I have never said anything about my partner. I would never refer to her that way,” she claimed, before alluding yet again to a plot against her by saying “I start thinking about where this comes from.”
She also addressed her tweet referencing George Floyd, who was murdered by former police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. Here’s the wording if you hadn’t seen it already: “I truly believe that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict and a hustler, but his death has served to highlight once again that there are those who still consider Black people to be monkeys without rights and those who consider the police to be murderers. All wrong.”
“He was a person who had been in a very difficult situation in his life and no one had helped him, and suddenly he becomes a symbol of a cause and everyone loved him,” Karla said during the interview while attempting to justify the tweet. “But for someone to think that…I have ever insulted a person because of their skin color, I do not allow that to anyone, to anyone.”
Karla also defended multiple past tweets that expressed anti-Islam sentiments, including one that called for a ban of the religion entirely. According to THR, she clarified that her sentiments were in opposition to “radical Islam,” and she cited her relationship with a Muslim woman “whom I adore, whom I love and who has taught me so much about respect for people.”
During the interview, Karla was also asked if she would “renounce” her Oscar nomination in light of the never-ending and increasingly self-inflicted controversy. “I cannot renounce a nomination because what I have done is a job and what is being valued is my acting work,” she stated.
“And I cannot renounce a nomination either because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone, I am not a racist, nor am I anything that all these people have taken it upon themselves to try to make others believe that I am.”
Will this be the last we hear about this story? I highly doubt it — and we’ll keep you updated as it continues to unfold.
