Karla Sofía Gascón was thanked by Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard after the film won Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Speaking through an interpreter Audiard thanked, “My dear Zoe [Saldaña], my dear Selena [Gomez]… and also you my dear Karla Sofía, to whom I send a kiss.” He added the award was “too nice” and an “immense honor.”
Gascón is nominated for Leading Actress at the BAFTAs, but is not attending the ceremony after a storm over her racially insensitive X/Twitter posts. Her co-star Saldaña won Best Supporting Actress.
Audiard has been one of her fiercest critics in recent weeks, telling Deadline that he was not talking to the transgender actress. “What Karla Sofía said is inexcusable,” he said. “I’m not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions.”
Gascón has effectively withdrawn from the awards trail, saying that she wanted to let the work do the talking. Gascón said she hopes “my silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is,” adding: “I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way.”
It follows Gascón’s controversial social media posts being unearthed by journalist Sarah Hagi last month, exploding a campaign in which the actress was expected to make history as a transgender award-winner for her role as a transitioning drug lord in Emilia Pérez.
Gascón wrote that Islam was a “hotbed of infection for humanity,” described George Floyd as a “drug addict swindler” and said that the 2021 Oscars were an “ugly” “Afro-Korean festival” after triumphs for Minari and Judas and the Black Messiah.
Elsewhere, Gascón pondered that she does not “understand so much about the world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion about Jews,” and regularly used a Spanish word that translates as “faggot” in English.
