And the controversy goes to …
Oscars season wouldn’t be the same without a scandal, and the 2025 Oscars has a doozy.
“Emilia Perez” star Karla Sofia Gascón, 52, who is the first transgender woman to get a “best actress” nomination, saw her awards campaign fall apart after her controversial social media posts resurfaced in January.
Carol Leifer, a former “Saturday Night Live” writer who has also worked on “Seinfeld” and has written for the Oscars for many years, weighed in on how this year’s host Conan O’Brien and his team of writers might handle the scandal.
Leifer, 68, is prohibited from revealing details about Sunday’s ceremony, but notes, “it really comes down to whoever’s hosting, whether they want to shine a light on that, or they want to sidestep it.”
After Gascón came under fire for her old social media posts, Netflix reportedly ditched the actress from the campaign.
“‘First out trans actress to receive an Oscar nomination is a massive bigot’ feels like a Ryan Murphy subplot,” one person joked on Twitter amid the controversy.
At the 2025 SAG Awards – which she was conspicuously absent from despite getting nominated – her co-stars Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez came out onstage to talk about their film and show clips that minimized Gascón’s presence in the movie.
But, it’s also been reported that Gascón will attend the Oscars, after all.
Leifer, who has also been a writer on “Hacks” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” explained, “I think each host has kind of a sixth sense with their hosting style, whether they want to address [a controversy] or not. It’s usually something more lighthearted.”
For instance, Leifer recalled when former host Billy Crystal leaned into a last-minute gag during the 2000 show.
“[Singer] Erykah Badu was one of the presenters, and she came out wearing a very big headdress that was kind of high. Billy came backstage after she came off like, ‘What else can we do, guys? Anybody have anything about her headdress?’ And I pitched, ‘Maybe that’s where the stolen Oscar is hidden.’ And he went out there and he did that joke. He liked it. And it got a big laugh.”
“So, there’s always stuff like on the fly that happens,” she went on. “But I think every host kind of very smartly makes a choice about current things that are happening in and around the show – whether they want to comment on them or not.”
Gascon’s past posts have since been deleted, but they were preserved in screenshots.
According to Variety, in a 2021 post reacting to that year’s Oscars, the Spanish star wrote, “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.”
In another since deleted post, she allegedly wrote: “Honestly, I 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 … without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”
Gascón released a statement to People amid the backlash.
“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain,” she said on Jan. 20. “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
On Jan. 31, she also told The Hollywood Reporter that she received death threats.
“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,” she shared. “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.”
“Emilia Pérez” director Jacques Audiard told Deadline that her words were “inexcusable.” While Saldana called the situation “sad” and “disappointing,” Gomez admitted that “some of the magic” about the movie “disappeared” once she learned of Gascon’s past remarks.
The 2025 Oscars will be hosted by Conan O’Brien and air Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.m. on ABC.
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