Karla Sofia Gascon Says She ‘Contemplated the Unthinkable’ Amid Tweets Backlash

Shortly after the film’s leading Oscar noms were announced, past racist tweets were resurfaced from Gascón’s account. She first deleted the offensive tweets, and then apologized, but there are those who believe the controversy tainted her own awards season and journey.

Now, in a new statement, the actress, who deleted her X account in late January amid the controversy, said she’s committed to learning and doing better, while opening up about how much the backlash impacted her mental health.

“I would have liked to experience it more normally, from the happiness of being nominated, of celebrating, as I am now, full of love, a person who puts her soul and her being into her work and who gives herself to others,” Gascón said of the Oscars to The Hollywood Reporter.

The actress again apologized “to all I have offended at any point in my life and throughout my journey,” while emphasizing her commitment to “continuing to learn and listen so as not to make the same mistakes in the future.”

In an effort to offer context, but not excuses, for the tweets, Gascón said that “hurtful things” she said and did came “from fear, from my own ignorance, from my own pain.”

Coming face to face with prejudices and bigotry in her own life as a transgender woman, Gascón said that “sometimes, we put on a shield to protect ourselves, so that harm does not reach our hearts, our skin, or our souls.”

“I have my own armor too, like anyone else. It’s not pretty, but it has saved my life a couple of times,” she said. At the same time, though, she argued that “shield” can become “cold and hard on the outside and can also hurt those around you.”

“This is what happened to me,” she said, emphasizing that it is never her intent to hurt, nor is it what’s in her heart.

Even her Emilia Pérez role was an effort to fight for “the rights of the most disadvantaged,” with Gascón explaining that in the film she was “defending and reflecting the life of a trans woman trapped in the worst possible place: the body of a criminal immersed in an extreme patriarchy.”

“You will always find me on the opposite side of fanaticism, imposition, patriarchy, fascism, dictatorships, terror, abuse, and irrationality,” she argued. “I do not bind myself to any political flag; I only try to be a human being in constant evolution, with successes and failures.”

She said she moves forward now with “an unbreakable will to learn, listen, admit mistakes, apologize and forgive others as I forgive myself for the unnecessary pain I have caused.”

Gascón also opened up about her struggles in the wake of the vitriol she faced following the controversial tweets resurfacing, called it the “most exposed [episode] of my life.” She cited fake accounts and tweets, while others she’s claimed were misrepresented.

“Absurd and even delirious accusations were thrown at me, which deeply hurt my spirit,” she told THR. “Things escalated to a point, and so quickly, that I couldn’t even breathe.”

She said that throughout the “unexpected, devastating storm” of controversy, there were times for her “when the pain has been so overwhelming that I contemplated the unthinkable.”

“I harbored darker thoughts than those I considered in some of my previous, no less intimate and personal struggles,” Gascón admitted.

“And I asked myself: if I, with all my strength and preparedness to deal with rage and rejection, am on the edge, what would have become of someone with fewer emotional resources to resist this onslaught?”

“Somehow, I made it,” she added. “Others would not have survived this brutal winter I am about to wrap up.”

She told the outlet that she hopes to use this experience to “open an honest discussion and reflection on mental health,” sharing what she’s learned now that “the worst has passed (or so I hope).”

“I’ve learned that hatred, like fire, cannot be put down with more hatred,” she shared. “Offenses cannot be erased with more offenses, and mistakes cannot clean up other mistakes, especially when lies and falseness proliferate all around and when all they send back to me is pure rage, blatant bullying, vexation, scorn and even death threats.”

“Fortunately, I have kept my one inch of sanity to see the light at the end of this tunnel of hate and understand that I must be and do better, and correct my past faults, without engaging in more darkness,” she continued.

“Otherwise, if I play their game, and reciprocate and amplify all that hate others project on me, I will get lost; I will never move forward, and I won’t be able to keep helping others still stuck in the storm.”

She concluded her message by saying, “if there is something that must guide us in these difficult days, it is empathy with those, like me, who have walked on the edge most of our lives, who believed we were a mistake, and then, we made mistakes.”

“Only through understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy can we build a world where difference is not synonymous with condemnation, but with richness,” she wrote. “A world where we can learn and grow as we go. A world where we can all put our shields aside and be ourselves.”