Karla Sofía Gascón Breaks Down In Unauthorized, Hour-Long CNN Interview: “I Have Been Crucified And Stoned”
Embattled Emilia Pérez star and Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón appeared in an hour-long, unauthorized CNN en Espa?ol interview Sunday morning, in which she broke down in tears and ranted at various points about her resurfaced racist and Islamophobic tweets.
Initially reiterating many of the same points in her Instagram apology posted yesterday, Gascón reiterated that she is “not racist” and offered her “most sincere apologies to all the people who may have felt offended for the way I express myself in my past, in my present and in my future.”
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She continued later: “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.”
Deadline has confirmed that Netflix was not involved in setting up the CNN interview and was not aware it was taking place.
In an interview that jumped around topics considerably, with interviewer Juan Carlos Arciniegas often unable to get a word in, Gascón discussed her “marvelous daughter” who she said has taught her “important values” and added that she relates to the struggles of Black people.
“I feel and very much identify with the people who were thrown off buses for the color of their skin, with the people who did not want them to study at university, for the people who were hated simply for existing, like how I am hated in this moment,” she said.
Gascón occasionally broke down in tears, citing a “relationship with a wonderful woman who is a Muslim who has taught her about respect and to understand perhaps better than in the past.” She later said she has been “100%” supported by her at this moment.
At another point, Gascón brought up her brother who died when she was 20: “When I was very little, my brother died in an accident on Christmas, and I have always held a resentment toward human beings of all spectrums because it seems to me that human beings are something deplorable but something in which I have incredible hope.”
She went on to say that she has always received hate, for example for wearing earrings or a skirt, and has previously been called anti-gay slurs for being trans. Additionally, she said she has faced hatred from some people in Mexico for being Spanish, claiming they called her a “Spanish woman who came again to rob them of gold.”
Later, Gascón referenced the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which she said left a mark on her: “It affected me to see two days before some people praying inside the train who were very similar to the people who later carried out these attacks.”
Amid tears, she said also: “I have not stopped receiving hate, death threats, insults, abuses. I have not seen anyone who has come out, in any media, any space, any place, raise their hand for me and say, ‘Hey, what is happening with this person who you are massacring?’ And no one, no one has lifted a single finger for change.”
When asked about her tweet in which she deemed George Floyd, who was murdered at the hands of police in 2020, a “drug addict and a hustler,” Gascón responded that she did pen the post and has treated social media as “unfortunately more like a diary” filled with “reflections as opposed to something that can influence someone, because before being here my post was viewed by three people.”
The actress, who made history as the first openly trans woman nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, went on to say that she relies heavily on “irony, sarcasm and at times exaggeration and of course I use a resource to talk in third person, if what I wrote was written by someone who thinks in a negative manner.” Gascón added that she is “obviously” a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, and claims she wrote the tweet in order to point out others’ racist commentary.
Gascón acknowledged that her tweet about the 93rd Oscars, in which she deemed Daniel Kaluuya’s and Yuh-Jung Youn’s respective wins as indicative of an “Afro-Korean festival,” as a “stupidity” and “surely they deserved those awards for all of their work and not for who they are.”
Arciniegas then asked Gascón to address a tweet she wrote that read, “This is the same as always: ‘Black slaves and the woman in the kitchen’. But this is my opinion and it must be respected. I do not understand so much world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion of the Jews. The end, that’s how the world goes.” In response, Gascón said she was once again using “third person, as if I were a Nazi.”
Gascón added that, with her tweets about Floyd, Muslims and Hitler taken together, “it appears that this is a terrible and evil person, when precisely I am intending to reflect the opposite.”
At another point, Gascón also debunked a circulated tweet in which she seemed to call co-star Selena Gomez a “rich rat” as fabricated, and that she has “never said anything about my colleague.”
“I said, ‘Well, but what have I done in my life? What have I done — if I have not killed a fly, that when I go to places and I have a spider in my house, I put it in a cup to not kill it and take it out to the street?” she said in tears, saying that the response to the controversy has made her feel as if she has committed a “crime.”
Gascón decried having to put in three to four years of work “like crazy” for Emilia Pérez only to now be defending herself against those who are trying to ensure she’s “not there anymore, not even that I don’t win.” She said she regardless “forgives” those she deems bad faith actors who “have nothing in this world” and are opting to come after her instead.
“If they want to withdraw any nomination, if they want to withdraw the brand that supports me, or whatever, I ask that they do it with a fair trial in that they give me the opportunity to defend myself,” she added.
When asked what Netflix or Gascón’s agency have shared with her, the actress said she has met with them once and can’t say much because they will be reuniting soon to discuss further. She added that she told Netflix from the beginning that she didn’t know why she had to launch an awards campaign, as she maintained that those who liked her performance would view it and vote for it and all she could do was contribute her work.
Gascón added that she has “nothing to hide” and a “clean conscience,” saying, “If the whole world thinks that I am that bad of a person that I have to return to my home and such, then I will go home with my family, my cats and with the people who love me and I will continue my life like I have done so before, [where] I have never lacked a plate of soup because I have made it honestly without hurting anybody in this world.”
When asked if she believes “pride played a role in everything,” Gascón answered: “When you come from a place where you have to defend yourself constantly … it’s really ugly to become accustomed to receiving violence, and to be able to struggle and live in a world where you are threatened with death constantly, sometimes you have to elevate yourself above it so that they don’t sink you. Because if I were a different type of person, perhaps, that would have let go and did not have that capacity, surely I would have already taken myself from this world from all the things that have happened to me.”
Gascón concluded the interview by apologizing to her daughter for having to deal with the ongoing controversy in place of celebrating, and added that she is aware her words are “going to be misrepresented to what [others] like or desire. This is obvious, and they will draw whatever conclusions that each one wants to draw, but as I told you before, I am only responsible for what my heart feels.”
Watch the interview, in Spanish, below:
Freelance culture writer Sarah Hagi first unearthed Gascón’s since-removed tweets on Thursday. Before the above interview and her post on Instagram yesterday, Gascón issued a statement through Netflix, in which she said: “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. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
Co-star Zoe Salda?a also commented on the matter, saying: “It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group. I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them were about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me.”
The controversy is the latest to plague the film: French auteur Jacques Audiard was under fire for calling Spanish the language of “the poor and migrants” and not researching Mexican history prior to making the film, about a Mexican cartel boss aiming to retire and undergo transition. The film — leading the pack with 13 Oscar nods — while the darling of critics and awards bodies alike, is deeply unpopular in Mexico, where it is screening to empty theaters and has even prompted a parody short film response titled “Johanne Sacreblu,” billed as “a French-inspired film made entirely without a French cast or crew.”
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