Selena Gomez addresses Karla Sofía Gascón controversy

Selena Gomez is breaking her silence on the controversy surrounding her "Emilia Pérez" costar Karla Sofía Gascón for the first time since the Oscar-nominated actress' offensive tweets resurfaced last month.

"I'm really good," Gomez said during a Q&A at the 2025 Santa Barbara Film Festival on Feb. 9 when asked how she's holding up amid the chaos surrounding her film. 

"Some of the magic has disappeared, but I choose to continue to be proud of what I’ve done, and I’m just, I’m just grateful and live with no regrets."

The 32-year-old added, "And I would do this movie over and over again if I could."

Old posts from Gascón’s X account resurfaced at the end of January, some going as far back as 2016, that took aim at Muslims’ dress, language and culture in her native Spain. She also suggested that Islam be banned.

SUGGESTED: Golden Globes winners: 'Emilia Pérez,' 'The Brutalist' and 'Shogun' dominate

And less than a month after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020, Gascón offered her assessment of Floyd — whose death prompted widespread reckoning with police brutality and racism — as a drug addict who "very few people ever cared" for.

A screenshot showed one of Gascón's alleged tweets calling Gomez a "rich rat" over a news story addressing rumors of a feud between Gomez and Hailey Bieber, wife of Gomez's ex Justin Bieber.

"It's not mine, of course," Karla told CNN en Español in Spanish in an on-camera interview posted online Feb. 2 when asked if she wrote the tweet in an insulting way to Gomez. "I've never said anything about my partner, I would never refer to her like that."

Following major backlash, she issued an apology and deactivated her X account.

"As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain," the actor said in a statement via Netflix, where the film can be streamed. "All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness."

She said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that she "can no longer allow this campaign of hate and misinformation to affect neither my family nor me anymore, so at their request I am closing my account on X." 

SUGGESTED: Selena Gomez responds to Eugenio Derbez’s criticism of her Spanish in 'Emilia Pérez'

Gascón also suggested that fake quotes have been attributed to her.

"They have created posts as if it were me, insulting even my colleagues," Gascón wrote on Instagram Feb. 1. "Things that I wrote to glorify as if they were criticism, jokes as if they were reality, words that without the background only seem like hate."

She added, "I cannot repair my past actions, I can only say that today I am not the same person as 10 or 20 years ago."

Gascón made history as the first transgender performer to be nominated for the Oscar for best actress, helping make "Emilia Pérez" the most nominated film going into next month’s show. Netflix will be hoping the controversy doesn’t derail the film’s Oscar chances.

The Source: Information for this story is from The Hollywood Reporter and the Associated Press.

EntertainmentInstastories