'Contemplated the unthinkable': Karla Sofia Gascon on awards season scandal
What's the story
Karla Sofia Gascon, the star of Emilia Perez and the first transgender female actor to receive an Oscar nomination, was a hot favorite for the 2025 Academy Awards.
However, her campaign was massively tainted by controversial social media posts that resurfaced during the awards season.
Despite skipping several events, she showed up at the Oscars where her situation was humorously referenced in the opening monologue.
Now that the awards season is over, Gascon has opened up about her experience.
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'I would have liked to experience it more normally'
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gascon revealed that she wished she had experienced the awards season "more normally."
She recalled how lovely it was to be nominated and celebrate her work, saying, "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."
Apology
Gascon apologized for controversial posts, described them as 'fear'
Gascon reiterated her apology for the controversial posts, attributing them to "fear, from my own ignorance, from my own pain."
She described the experience as an "unexpected, devastating storm" and admitted that "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," she reflected.
Reflection
Gascon reflected on emotional toll of controversy
Gascon further reflected on the emotional toll of the controversy, questioning what would have happened to someone with fewer emotional resources.
"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. Others would not have survived this brutal winter I am about to wrap up."