“Emilia Pérez” is trying out an unusual new award season strategy: Ditch Emilia Pérez.
Karla Sofia Gascón, the titular star of “Emilia Pérez” and first openly transgender performer to be nominated for an Oscar, will no longer be involved in awards campaigning for the movie, according to a new report.
The controversial 52-year-old Best Actress nominee came under fire last week for a series of resurfaced, offensive posts on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that have been decried as racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic.
Because of the backlash, sources told The Hollywood Reporter the musical film’s distributor Netflix will not have Gascón fly from Spain to Los Angeles this week to attend the AFI Awards on Thursday, Critics’ Choice Awards on Friday or the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.
She is also a recipient of a Santa Barbara Film Festival Virtuoso Award, which will additionally honor the likes of Kieran Culkin, Ariana Grande, Mikey Madison and Gascon’s co-star Selena Gomez. The actress won’t show up there either.
THR said that some other Virtuoso honorees have refused to make the trip if Gascón was also onstage. Actors have indicated “that they might have to cancel their participation if she did not cancel hers, out of concern that things could get very uncomfortable with her there,” the outlet said.
It’s a huge shift from a month ago when Gascón triumphantly took the stage of the Beverly Hilton hotel to accept the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture – musical or comedy.
“Emilia Pérez” is nominated for 13 Academy Awards — the most of any film this year — and was considered by many pundits to be the Best Picture frontrunner before this week. Now its odds have plummeted.
In a now-deleted social media post in Spanish, Gascón said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.” In 2020, she also called George Floyd a “drug addict swindler.”
In another, she took aim at the Oscars, saying, “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.”
The star has made a series of apologies this week reportedly without the consultation of Netflix.
“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt,” she said in a statement.
“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.”
Then, in an hour-long, unauthorized interview with CNN en Español, Gascón asserted that she is “not racist,” adding, “I believe I have been judged, I have been convicted and sacrificed and crucified and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself.”
Co-star Zoe Saldaña disavowed Gascón’s old remarks during a talk onstage in London.
“It makes me really sad because I don’t support (it), and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group,” she said.
Still, Gascón is staying put in the Best Actress race.
“I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone,” she said.
Voting for the 2025 Oscars begins on Feb. 11, and the ceremony hosted by Conan O’Brien airs Sunday, March 2 on ABC.
