Karla Sofía Gascón addresses social media controversy in unauthorised interview
Emilia Perez star and Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón has made an unauthorised appearance on Español CNN on Sunday morning, in an hour-long interview in which she broke down in tears when discussing her rediscovered racist and Islamophobic tweets.
Gascón reiterated the same sentiment she had shared in her Instagram apology, saying 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”.
She later expanded on this, saying, “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.”
It has been confirmed that the interview with CNN was organised without Netflix, who had no knowledge of it being arranged. Gascón discussed many different talking points throughout the conversation, with the interviewer Juan Carlos Arciniegas struggling to contribute to the discussion but talking about her “marvelous daughter” who she said has taught her “important values”, also adding that she relates to the struggles of Black people.
Arciniegas said, “I feel and very much identify with the people who were thrown off buses for the colour 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 at this moment”.
Gascón began crying at several points in the interview, describing her “relationship with a wonderful woman who is a Muslim who has taught [me] about respect and to understand perhaps better than in the past”, who she said still supports her today in light of these controversies.
During another point in the interview, Gascón also brought up her brother, who died when she was 20, saying, “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 also described the hate she has received in her own life, as well as referencing the 2004 Madrid bombings, which she said deeply affected her. While crying, she said, “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 confronted with several specific tweets, the actor denied some of them and deflected accountability from them, saying that the response to these tweets has made her feel like she has committed a crime and that she has a “clean conscience” with “nothing to hide”.
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