Why Karla Sofía Gascón’s Emilia Pérez journey turned controversial? Explained

Karla Sofía Gascón and Emilia Pérez's Oscar journey turned controversial seemingly overnight. After receiving 13 nominations at the 2025 Academy Awards and becoming the first foreign film to receive the most Oscar nominations, it all came crashing down when the actress' old tweets surfaced online. This led to massive public backlash from fans, and even Netflix dropped support for her.

A few days after Karla Sofía Gascón's nominations at the 2025 Academy Awards, many users on X decided to scroll down on the actress' profile and they unearthed many controversial tweets.

Gascón was involved in another controversy where she accused I Am Still Here star and fellow nominee Fernanda Torres' team of running a hate campaign against her.

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What did Karla Sofía Gascón say?

In January 2025, following the actress receiving her Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, many of her old tweets were resurfaced. In a series of tweets that the actress made between 2019 to 2021, she went on to post tweets that were considered racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic.

In one tweet, Gascón described Islam as a "hotbed of infection for humanity," and went on certain tirades criticizing the religion. Aside from that, she made posts criticizing George Floyd as well and the Black Lives Matter movement. Upon Parasite winning the Oscar, Gascón also tweeted out asking if the Oscars had turned into an "Afro-Korean festival".

Gascón expressed anti-vaccine sentiments about the COVID-19 vaccines and allegedly wrote that the "Chinese vaccine" comes with a mandatory chip and "two spring rolls, a cat that moves its hand, two plastic flowers, a pop-up lantern, three telephone lines, and one euro for your first controlled purchase."

Following this, Karla Sofía Gascón quickly started deleting all her tweets and later on deleted her X account as well. She put out a statement apologizing for her earlier comments to The Hollywood Reporter.

“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."

Following these events, she was distanced from the promotional activities of Emilia Perez and did not attend any award shows as well.

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Co-Star Zoe Saldana "sad" over Karla Sofía Gascón controversy

Following Karla Sofía Gascón's controversy, co-star Zoe Saldana broke her silence over the issue as well. Talking to Variety on February 5, 2025, Saldana revealed that she was sad over the controversy and deeply disappointed by it as well.

“I’m sad. Time and time again, that’s the word because that is the sentiment that has been living in my chest since everything happened,” said the actress.

She continued:

“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.”

Currently, Saldana is up for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category.