Karla Sofía Gascón has been left off the guest list of attendees for the BAFTA Film Awards, after several of her offensive social media posts resurfaced and sparked controversy amid allegations of racism, homophobia and body shaming.
The Spanish actress, 52, is nominated for Leading Actress for her role in Netflix musical, Emilia Perez, which has bagged an impressive 11 nods in total, only coming second to Conclave’s 12.
However, Thursday saw BAFTA confirm the A-list attendees and seating plan for Sunday’s glitzy ceremony, with Karla’s name conspicuously absent.
While her fellow nominated Emilia Perez co-stars Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez were confirmed to be attending the awards in London, with the two actresses even presenting a gong together.
Karla’s omission from the guest list comes after she failed to attend the Critics Choice Awards, the Producers Guild of America Awards and Spain’s Goya Awards at the weekend.
She released a statement last week where she effectively announced her withdrawal from the awards trail, declaring she wanted her work to do the talking.
Karla Sofía Gascón has been left off the guest list of attendees for the BAFTA Film Awards, after several of her offensive social media posts resurfaced and sparked controversy amid allegations of racism , homophobia and body shaming (pictured in November)
The Spanish actress, 52, is nominated for Leading Actress for her role in Netflix musical, Emilia Perez, which has bagged an impressive 11 nods in total, only coming second to Conclave’s 12 (pictured in film)
Her fellow nominated Emilia Perez co-stars Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez were confirmed to be attending the awards in London, with the two actresses even presenting a gong together (pictured in October)
The BAFTAs marks the highest-profile event she is expected to miss, after she became the first openly trans actress to be nominated for a BAFTA Film Award.
Karla has come under-fire after her old social media posts were uncovered, showing her criticizing Islam, George Floyd, Adele and co-star Selena.
Following the backlash, the cast and crew of Emilia Perez have distanced themselves from her, as well as Netflix itself.
During the Critics Choice Awards on Friday, Zoe, director Jacques Audiard and the film’s composers Camille and Clément Ducol, all avoided any mention of Karla in their acceptance speeches.
While Netflix has reportedly cut her out of their awards campaign entirely, after investing millions in the Spanish musical’s awards push, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The streaming giant reportedly has ‘no great interest’ in providing Karla with ‘transportation and accommodations’ for any of the remaining awards season gatherings.
Variety has also reported that her image has been scrubbed from a lot of the Emilia Perez promotional material, as Netflix shifts their focus to centering their campaign around Zoe, who is a frontrunner to win Best Supporting Actress at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars next month.
On X, a number of prominent film-related accounts commented on Karla being absent from a promotional poster the streamer purportedly released touting the movie’s 13 Academy Award nominations, but omitting the lead actress’ name and image.
Karla’s omission from the guest list comes after she failed to attend the Critics Choice Awards, the Producers Guild of America Awards and Spain’s Goya Awards and released a statement last week effectively withdrawing from the awards trail (pictured in January)
Following the backlash, the cast and crew of Emilia Perez have distanced themselves from her, as well as Netflix itself, which reportedly has ‘no great interest’ in providing her with ‘transportation and accommodations’ for any of the remaining awards shows (Adriana Paz, Selena, Zoe and Karla at the Globes last month)
Karla has issued multiple apologies and statements since her offensive social media posts first resurfaced.
Announcing she was quitting X in a statement via The Hollywood Reporter, she wrote: ‘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.
‘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’.
‘I have defended each and every one of the minorities in this world and supported any event against racism, freedom of religion or homophobia, in the same way that I have criticized the hypocrisy that underlies them, because the first thing I am self-critical of is myself,’ she added.
The new statement comes on the heels of her first apology, in which she said she was ‘deeply sorry’ for any ‘hurt’ and ‘pain’ she may have caused in tweets she made on X.
The posts were first uncovered by Muslim writer Sarah Hagi and translated into English by Variety.
One post, from November 2020 read: ‘I’m sorry. Is it just my impression or is there more muslims 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. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.’
Another post from September 2020 featured a photo of a Muslim family dining in a restaurant in traditional Islamic attire, which included the wife covered from head-to-toe in a black burqa.
During the Critics Choice Awards on Friday, Zoe (pictured), director Jacques Audiard and the film’s composers Camille and Clément Ducol, all avoided any mention of Karla in their acceptance speeches
Variety has also reported that her image has been scrubbed from a lot of the Emilia Perez promotional material, as Netflix shifts to centering their campaign around Zoe, who is a frontrunner to win Best Supporting Actress at both the BAFTAs and Oscars
‘Islam is marvelous, without any machismo. Women are respected, and when they are so respected they 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,’ Gascón wrote.
Karla also posted about George Floyd, whose murder by Minneapolis police, as he protested ‘I can’t breathe’, sparked the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
She wrote: ‘I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They are both wrong.’
The star added: ‘Too many things to reflect on regarding the behavior of our species every time an event occurs. Perhaps it is no longer a question of racism, but of social classes that feel threatened by each other. Maybe that’s the only real difference.’
And despite hoping to take home the Oscar next month for her role in Emilia Perez, even that revered awards ceremony didn’t escape her criticism in a post in 2021.
She posted: ‘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. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.’
She also criticized China during the Covid pandemic, writing: ‘The Chinese vaccine, apart from the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls, a cat that moves its hand, 2 plastic flowers, a pop-up lantern, 3 telephone lines and one euro for your first controlled purchase.’
Karla’s offensive posts were uncovered by Muslim writer Sarah Hagi and translated into English by Variety
Karla also body shamed Adele over her weight loss in another resurfaced post from May 2020, where she speculated the singer had loose skin on her arms after her body transformation
Karla also body shamed Adele over her weight loss in another resurfaced post from May 2020, where she speculated the singer had loose skin on her arms after her body transformation.
Sharing photos of Adele in glamorous gowns, the Spanish star wrote: ‘COVID passed, and she went overboard with the sleeves, or she went under the knife and they didn’t remove the skin from her arms @Adele.’
Responding to the controversy in a statement to DailyMail.com, Karla said: ‘I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt.’
She continued: ‘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.’
In a scathing interview with Deadline, Emilia Perez director Jacques Audiard condemned Karla and accused her of hurting the cast and crew of the film by refusing to stay silent in the wake of her social media scandal.
‘I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to. She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing. Why is she harming herself? Why?’ he told the publication.
‘I’m thinking in this thing of how hurting others, of how she’s hurting the crew and all these people who worked so incredibly hard on this film. I’m thinking of myself, I’m thinking of Zoe and Selena. I just don’t understand why she’s continuing to harm us,’ he continued.
‘I’m not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions.’
In a scathing interview, Emilia Perez director Jacques Audiard condemned Karla and accused her of hurting the cast and crew of the film by refusing to stay silent in the wake of her social media scandal (pictured with Karla last month)
Despite his harsh words, Jacques admitted that he had a great relationship with Karla up until her old social media posts came to light.
‘It’s very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía. The trust we shared, the exceptional atmosphere that we had on the set that was indeed based on trust,’ he said.
‘And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected. It’s as if you fall into a hole. Because what Karla Sofía said is inexcusable.’
He also accused the actress of ‘playing the victim’ in the wake of the scandal.
This year’s BAFTA awards will see Doctor Who star David Tennant return as the host for the second year running to celebrate another tremendous year for film.
The actor will present the ceremony from the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, with it broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Britbox in the US and Australia.
