Emilia PérezStar Karla Sofía Gascón Says She’s ‘Not a Racist’ in Tearful Interview

Mar. 15, 2025

Karla Sofía Gascón on CNN en Español.Photo:CNN en Espanol/YouTube

CNN en Espanol/YouTube

The Oscar nominee, 52, sat down withCNN en Españolfor an hour-long conversation with anchor Juan Carlos Arciniegas, which aired on Sunday, Feb. 2. She addressed the allegations of racism and Islamophobia, as well as her supposed tweet against herEmilia PérezcostarSelena Gomez.

Gascón grew visibly emotional during the interview.

Karla Sofía Gascón.Medios y Media/Getty

Medios y Media/Getty

Gascón continued, perCNN, “I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone. I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am.”

The Netflix star also addressed her since-deleted X posts about the 2020 murder ofGeorge Floydthat brought viral attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. In the series of posts, Gascón called Floyd “a drug addict and a hustler” and said “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,” perTHR.

From left: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez attend a screening of ‘Emilia Pérez’ in October 2024.Aude Guerrucci/AFP/Getty

Aude Guerrucci/AFP/Getty

Explaining the posts to CNN, Gascón reportedly said her words were misconstrued and that she was trying to make a point about Floyd’s newfound support. “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,” she explained.

“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,” the actress added.

Ultimately, the actress claimed she has never caused harm to anyone. “What have I done in my life? What have I done? I haven’t killed a single fly,” she said in the CNN interview, according to a translation fromDeadlineandTHR. “When I have a spider in my house I put a little glass on it so as not to kill it and take it out to the street.”

Karla Sofía Gascón.Kevin Winter/Getty

Kevin Winter/Getty

Gascón also addressed the controversial tweet in which she reportedlycalled Gomez a “rich rat"amid her rumored feud withHailey Bieber, refuting its existence.

“It’s not mine, of course,” Gascón claimed, per CNN. “I have never said anything about my colleague I would never refer to her that way.”

Furthermore, she claimed that the allegedly fake social media post attributed to her may have been purposefully trying to damage her Oscar campaign amid the ongoing voting period.

The actress alleged that people “have dedicated themselves to searching, to put together all the things that I had said at a time that I had written — most of which are false … most of them I don’t even recognize that I wrote them. And they put them all together and so it seems that she is a very bad person and we remove her just when we can do the most damage, right in the voting period.”

However, Gascón also said, “I don’t give a damn about awards.”

“What I do care about is the people that I represent, because of what I represent in this world,” she continued to CNN. “We can all change and be better people in this world.”

Deadline reported that Gascón’s interview with CNN en Español was “unauthorized.”

Karla Sofía Gascón in an ‘Emilia Pérez’ scene.Shanna Besson/PAGE 114

Shanna Besson/PAGE 114

On Friday, Jan. 31, the actress shared a statement toTHR, in which she said she hasreceived death threats and harassmentdue to the offensive social media posts.

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“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,' she said in the statement. “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.”

HerEmilia PérezcostarZoe Saldañawasrecently asked about the controversyduring a London Q&A and said, “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” perTHR.

“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,” Saldaña said. “I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity. And it just saddens me.”

source: people.com