Karla Sofía Gascón's problems are piling up after the controversy generated by her old tweets. If on Tuesday Netflix vetoed her presence in the promotion of Emilia Pérez in the US for the Oscars and other Los Angeles awards, now it is the publishing house that planned to release a new version of her autobiographical novel that has canceled the actress. Karsia, a text from 2018 signed still as Carlos Gascón - prior to the transition - will not see the light. At least not with Dos Bigotes.
According to information obtained by EL MUNDO, the publishing house specialized in LGBTQI+ and feminist content has suspended the publication of Karla Sofía Gascón's book, announced since Christmas and whose release was scheduled for March 17. The cycle that the protagonist of Emilia Pérez, awarded at the Cannes Film Festival along with her castmates and nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress, was experiencing had sparked interest in her novel again. The actress's old comments that were made public last week, some of them racist and sexist, have put an end to that path.
Dos Bigotes made the decision to renounce the publication of Karsia at the end of last week, at the moment the actress's tweets were made public, triggering the media earthquake of the last few days. The publishing project was not a simple reissue of the original text, but a new corrected and revised edition. Now that new version, unless another publishing house takes it on, will not see the light.
This is becoming the general trend in the career of the actress from Alcobendas. Boosted by the success of Emilia Pérez, both nationally and internationally, her moment of success lasted only a few months. The emergence of tweets attacking Islam, the late George Floyd, or her now colleague Selena Gomez, many in an inappropriate tone, have caused the downfall of a star with the potential to make history as the first trans woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress. In fact, on January 23, she became the first to receive a nomination.
Five days after the announcement, on January 28, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, shared on his social networks that he had met with Karla Sofía Gascón. Accompanying a photo of both, the department head stated that the Madrid native was "an example of the talent and dedication of Spanish actresses." A few days earlier, in an interview on RTVE in Catalonia, he even described her Oscar nomination as an "example of diversity."
Yesterday, Urtasun's view was completely different. The minister expressed his "regret" for the messages sent by the artist through X at an event at the Museum of Romanticism in Madrid. "I have to regret the tweets we have learned about, they do not represent Spanish society and I say this with great sorrow because it was a candidacy for the country," said Urtasun, who was accompanied by the vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, who did not even address the issue.
When asked by the press if he stood by his words from the previous week, the Culture Minister reiterated the same message. "I say this with sorrow, but I believe they do not represent Spanish society. Those tweets have tarnished Karla Sofía Gascón's candidacy," he concluded a day after Netflix decided to completely do without the Spanish actress in the race for the Oscars: she was not on the posters for Emilia Pérez, nor in internal emails with the platform, and the audiovisual giant, according to The Hollywood Reporter, had declined to cover her travel and accommodation for the various awards taking place this weekend in Los Angeles, where she is the main nominee for Jacques Audiard's narcomusical.
Upon learning of this, on the same Tuesday, the actress stated in a press release that she was being subjected to "cancel culture." "For a long time, I felt lost in my transition, seeking approval in the eyes of others. But today, I finally know who I am. I only seek the freedom to exist without fear, to create art without barriers, and to move forward with my new life," she emphasized.