Even the top brass is commenting on the scandal.
Before the 2025 Oscars on Sunday, academy CEO Bill Kramer spoke out about the controversy surrounding “Emilia Perez” star Karla Sofia Gascón.
Gascon, 52, is the first transgender woman to get a best actress nomination – before she swiftly fell from grace after her controversial social media posts resurfaced in January.
“The Academy does not condone hate speech — I want to be very clear about that,” Kramer told The Hollywood Reporter. “Karla’s nomination is historic. That’s really important. She’s still a nominee. We honor that, but we do not condone hate speech.”
He added that “all nominees are invited to attend the show,” and “that stands” for Gascón if she chooses to go.
“If Karla joins us for the night, I hope there is an air of respect,” Kramer continued. “We have over 200 nominees. The night is about much more than one person. We are there to celebrate all of our nominees.”
Kramer has been the CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2022.
Gascón’s old posts on X, formerly Twitter, have since been deleted.
According to Variety, in a 2021 post reacting to that year’s Oscars, the Spanish star wrote, “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.”
In another since deleted post, she allegedly wrote: “Honestly, I think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider Black people to be … without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”
As she got backlash to her posts, Gascón released a statement to People.
“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. 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 said on Jan. 20. “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
She also gave an interview to CNN en Español allegedly without approval from Netflix.
“I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone,” she told the outlet.
“I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am.”
On Jan. 31, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she received death threats, too.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Netflix dumped the actress from the Oscars campaign. She was absent from the 2025 SAG Awards — despite getting nominated — when her co-stars Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez came out onstage to talk about their film.
It’s been reported that Gascón will attend the Oscars after all — even though she skipped the Oscars nominees dinner.
Her “Emilia Perez” co-stars have spoken out about the scandal.
“Emilia Pérez” director Jacques Audiard told Deadline that her words were “inexcusable.”
“It’s very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía,” he continued. “And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected. It’s as if you fall into a hole.”
The director added that he hadn’t spoken with her and didn’t want to.
Audiard shared that “she is in a self-destructive approach,” and he “can’t interfere.”
He sang a different tune, however, at the 2025 BAFTA Film Awards when he accepted the award for Best Film Not in the English Language.
The director praised the actress, saying, “Above all, I would like to thank all the wonderful artists who brought this film to life and who are here with us tonight…My dear Zoe, my dear Selena, Giorgini, Paul, Juliet, Camille, Clement, Julia and your team, but also you, my dear Karla Sofia, that I kiss.”
Saldana, meanwhile, told Variety that she was “sad” about her co-star’s past remarks.
“I’m also disappointed. I can’t speak for other people’s actions. All I can attest to is my experience, and never in a million years did I ever believe that we would be here.”
Gomez, for her part, admitted that “some of the magic” about the movie “disappeared” due to the scandal.
The 2025 Oscars will be hosted by Conan O’Brien and air Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.m. on ABC.
