Karla Sofía Gascón, the lead actor of the Oscar-nominated musical feature Emilia Pérez, has issued an official apology after troubling social media posts on her personal account about Muslims, George Floyd and diversity at the Oscars resurfaced this week.

Gascón is a Spanish actor who developed part of her career in the Americas. The 52-year-old rose to prominence in 2024 for her lead role as Emilia Pérez in the eponymous movie, which made her the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Award at the Oscars.

And despite the huge win this represented for the trans community, Gascón came under fire after netizens started to share several tweets the actor had made in 2020 and 2021.

One of these was in relation to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, which sparked worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.

In Spanish, Gascón called Floyd “a martyr hero” weeks after his death and wrote: “I truly believe that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict and a hustler, but 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.”

In another tweet she added it “is no longer a question of racism but social classes that feel threatened by each other.”

Needless to say, that to deny and obscure the racism of the incident did not only insult Floyd’s but also the larger social-political movement his death sparked.

In regards to Muslims, Gascón bemoaned what she described as their increasing presence in Spain: “Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Maybe next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”

In another tweet about Islam, she lamented over the rights of women who are “left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves. Although they dress this way for their own enjoyment. How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY.”

In a post from 29 January 2021, Gascón wrote that “Islam fails to comply with international rights.”

Moreover, the actor’s opinions on the Oscars diversifying in 2021 also left much to be desired: “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,” Gascón wrote. “Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala,” the post continued.

Actress Karla Sofía Gascón is facing backlash as old racist and Islamophobic posts resurface and go viral. pic.twitter.com/ZgG7Xakgb3

— Pop Tingz (@ThePopTingz) January 30, 2025

Karla Sofía Gascón is such a raging racist that she saw Daniel Kaluuya and Youn Yuh-jung winning Oscars and complained that it’s become an “Afro-Korean festival” pic.twitter.com/wRCwiG8d2f

— Wendell (@RhodeToLove) January 30, 2025

All of these tweets definitely didn’t reflect the progressive and inclusive zeitgeist netizens would have expected the lead of Emilia Pérez, an all-Spanish Mexican cartel musical, to have. It made Gascón stand in stark contrast to her diverse body of work.

Me with Karla Sofía Gascón’s tweets at the Oscars nominees luncheon pic.twitter.com/YyCbcunTro

— José María Luna (@JoseMLuna) January 30, 2025

Tweet something that’s not racist or Islamophobic?

Karla Sofía Gascón: pic.twitter.com/9jk28g4EC6

— Shank (@Shankballs) January 30, 2025

disqualify karla sofía gascón and nominate margot robbie for babylon pic.twitter.com/YDQwRvvI7c

— val (@lalalandism) January 30, 2025

Following a wave of backlash on social media, the actor issued an official apology to Variety: “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalised 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.”