Emilia Pérez’s Controversial Camino

When the 2025 Oscars nominations are finally announced after delays, Emilia Pérez is expected to rack ’em up. The Spanish-language French film led the Oscars shortlist, won four Golden Globes, and has three SAG nominations, including Best Ensemble. But throughout, there has been an undercurrent of controversy. Following a drug lord who transitions and tries to undo the harm her past life inflicted, Emilia Pérez was written and directed, in Spanish, by a man who speaks no Spanish. The film has been criticized for its portrayal of Mexico, its trans representation, and even the accents of its actors.

Below, a timeline of the controversies following Emilia Pérez on its camino to the Oscars, including Karla Sofía Gascón’s resurfaced tweets, apologies, and Netflix’s response to them.

May 25, 2024: Emilia Pérez wins the Jury Prize at Cannes. Adriana Paz, Zoë Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, and Selena Gomez win Best Actress collectively.

October 2024: Karla Sofía Gascón tells Rolling Stone that it was a “difficult job” mastering the Mexican accent, especially in France, where she doesn’t have the added gift of immersion. “Every Mexican I’ve met, except the one sitting in front of me, has said that my accent was impressive,” she said. “If I were to speak in my typical accent to you, you’d die.”

November 14, 2024: A clip of director Jacques Audiard circulates on Twitter, in which he says he “didn’t study much” about Mexico. “I kinda already knew what I had to understand,” he says.

November 15, 2024: GLAAD rounds up criticism that the film is poor representation for trans people, calling it “profoundly retrograde.” They quote PinkNews’ Amelia Hansford, who writes that Emilia Pérez is “sub-par, disingenuous, harmful nonsense,” as well as the Cut’s Harron Walker, who critiques the unrealistic depictions of gender-affirmation surgery, saying the film “displayed an understanding of plastic surgery that’s about as refined as McG’s recent Uglies.”

November 24, 2024: Mexican cinematographer and Pedro Páramo director Rodrigo Prieto tells Deadline he was “offended” by the film’s lack of authenticity. “First of all, I’m unhappy that the film was not shot in Mexico,” he says. “Secondly, why wouldn’t you include more Mexican people to participate in the production? Why not hire a Mexican production designer, costume designer, or at least some consultants? Yes, they had dialogue coaches, but I was offended that such a story was portrayed in a way that felt so inauthentic.” Prieto mentions one specific detail that rubbed him the wrong way: “You would never have a jail sign that read ‘Cárcel,’ it would be ‘Penitenciaria.’”

December 5, 2024: Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez calls Selena Gomez’s accent in the film “indefensible” on the Hablando de Cine Con podcast. Host Gaby Meza agrees, adding, “I feel like she doesn’t know what she’s saying. If she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she can’t give her acting any nuance.”

Gomez comments on the TikTok, writing, “I understand where you are coming from … I’m sorry I did the best I could with the time I was given.” Gomez spoke Spanish as a child but lost facility with the language once she started acting in English. Earlier in the year, Gomez said relearning Spanish for the role was “wonderful. The experience was in a way reconnecting. I’m grateful for it. If anything, I hope this isn’t [the] last thing I do in Spanish.”

Derbez issues an apology on social media. “Dear Selena, I truly apologize for my careless comments — they are indefensible and go against everything I stand for,” he writes. “As Latinos, we should always support one another. There’s no excuse. I was wrong, and I deeply admire your career and your heart.”

December 9, 2024: Casting director Carla Hool says her team “did a big search” for Mexican actors but didn’t find any actors suitable for the main roles. Zoë Saldaña is American of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage, Karla Sofía Gascón is Spanish, and Selena Gomez is Mexican American. “So we had to figure out how to adjust authenticity … with the accents, and them not necessarily being native Mexican.”

January 5, 2025: Emilia Pérez wins four Golden Globes, including Best Picture — Musical/Comedy and Best Supporting Actress for Zoë Saldaña. The wins come under criticism for category fraud (for Saldaña), overly emotional speeches (again, Saldaña), and not enough discussion of trans rights (all speeches).

People share the gender-affirming surgery scene, reigniting the trans representation debate.

And more Mexican writers and actors criticize the film for an othering, inaccurate view of Mexico.

January 10, 2025: Adriana Paz, who plays Emilia’s lover Epifanía, defends the movie’s depiction of Mexico. Paz is one of the few Mexican actors in the film and shared the joint Best Actress award at Cannes. “I’ve heard people saying it’s offensive to Mexico. I really want to know why, because I didn’t feel that way. And I have questioned some people that I trust, not just as artists but as people, and they don’t feel that way, so I am trying to understand,” she tells IndieWire. “The first time that I saw it, I told Jacques, ‘You’re a genius.’”

“I told him the very first time that I saw him, ‘This is controversial, Jacques. It’s like, you can do bad things and then you can do good things, and you’re a saint,’” Paz says, referring to the film’s final scene, which implies Pérez achieves sainthood via her transition. “But also, everyone has a good and a bad side. There’s a lot of sicarios in Mexico that didn’t want to be sicarios; they were kidnapped by criminals when they were just kids, and they ended up in these criminalistic pacts. Are they bad? I mean, yes, but they are also the result of a history of violence and corruption. And maybe some of them wanted to try to change.”

January 21, 2025: In an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Karla Sofía Gascón claims the team surrounding I’m Still Here and its star, Fernanda Torres, are conducting a smear campaign against Gascón and Emilia Pérez. “What I don’t like are social-media teams — people who work with these people — trying to diminish our work, like me and my movie, because that doesn’t lead anywhere,” she says, translated from Spanish by Variety. “You don’t need to tear down someone’s work to highlight another’s. I have never, at any point, said anything bad about Fernanda Torres or her movie. However, there are people working with Fernanda Torres tearing me and Emilia Pérez down. That speaks more about their movie than mine.” In a statement to Variety, Gascón said she wasn’t referring to people in direct contact with Torres but rather against “toxicity and violent hate speech on social media.”

January 24, 2025: Mexican filmmaker Camila Aurora releases an “homage” film to Emilia Pérez called Johanne Sacrebleu. The film is a T4T Romeo & Juliet riff, with trans baguette heiress Johanne Sacrebleu falling for trans croissant heir Agtugo Ratatouille. How can these crazy kids find their peace surrounded by the endless war between patisserie and boulangerie? Most of the French people depicted are mimes and/or piloted by rats à la Ratatouille.

January 30, 2025: Writer Sarah Hagi compiles screenshots of racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and all-around hateful tweets made by Karla Sofía Gascón dating back years, along with their English translations (via Google Translate) from the original Spanish. In these tweets, ranging from 2016 to 2023, Gascón refers to Muslims with incendiary, derogatory language, and endorses the expulsion of Muslim immigrants from European nations, often using a shrug emoji. “How many times will we have to expel these madmen from Europe until we realize that their religion is INCOMPATIBLE with Western values,” she asks in one tweet. “How many more times will history have to expel the Moors from Spain …” she writes in another.

Gascón’s (then-Twitter) account has additional offensive posts, including an insensitive thread from June 2020 about George Floyd.

Later that same day, Gascón releases a statement apologizing for her posts: “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. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”

Still, more of her past tweets continue to circulate online, including one about the 2021 Oscars in which she says that she didn’t know if she was “watching an Afro-Korean festival” or “a Black Lives Matter demonstration.” In another resurfaced post, Gascón tweeted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that the “Chinese vaccine, apart from the mandatory chip, comes with a cat that moves its hand, 2 plastic flowers, a pop-up lantern, 3 telephone lines and one euro for your first controlled purchase.”

January 31, 2025: Karla Sofía Gascón deactivates her X account and explains the decision in a statement that she says was sent “between tears” to The Hollywood Reporter. “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 writes, adding that she has received death threats.

Expanding on her previous apology, Gascón maintains that she supports all minorities, freedom of religion, and “any action against” racism and homophobia. “I am a human being who also made, makes and will make mistakes from which I will learn. I am not perfect,” she says in the new statement. “Taking my words out of context or manipulating them to hurt me is something I am not responsible for.” The actress expresses her desire to provide “a more extensive explanation” in the future. While she apologizes to anyone she has offended, she also suggests that there is “something very dark behind” the backlash. “The more you try to sink me, the stronger it will make me. The greater the victory will be,” she declares.

Gascón does not appear as scheduled at an Emilia Pérez Q&A in London. At the event, Zoë Saldaña acknowledges her co-star’s controversial resurfaced tweets. “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” she says, per The Hollywood Reporter. Saldaña notes that she’s upset because she doesn’t support or tolerate “any negative rhetoric towards people of any group,” adding, “I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity.”

After again expressing sadness about “having to face this setback,” Saldaña said she’s pleased that people are still showing up for Emilia Pérez, affirming her belief that the film has a powerful message and can bring forward “important” change to marginalized communities. “And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message,” she concludes. “That’s all we can say right now.”

February 1, 2025: Gascón posted a third statement, reiterating the same points from the last two messages. “Everyone who knows me knows I’m not racist (it’ll surprise you when you describe that the most important person in my life and who I love the most is Muslim) nor none of the things that you are judging me and condemning me without trial and without the opportunity to explain my true intentions,” she added.

February 2, 2025: Gascón appears on CNN en Español for an hourlong interview, in which she reiterates her apologies but also breaks down crying while defending her words. “I have been judged, condemned, sacrificed, crucified, and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself,” she says. Gascón discloses that “right now, I have a relationship with a wonderful person, a wonderful woman who is Muslim, and she has taught me respect,” though she does not clarify the nature of their relationship. Regarding the incendiary language in some of her tweets, Gascón says she uses irony and sarcasm to point out hypocrisy. When asked if she would rescind her nomination from the Oscars race, she says, “I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone. I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am.” According to THR, Gascón set up the interview herself without the involvement of Netflix or the film’s publicity team.

February 3, 2025: Netflix debuts a new For Your Consideration ad for Emilia Pérez that Gascón has been “completely erased from,” Fantastic Film Fans editor-in-chief Jason Osiason points out in a tweet. Neither Gascón’s name nor face are included. Instead, the marketing focus appears to have shifted to Zoe Saldaña. (Variety later reports that this is Netflix’s attempt to “salvage” Emilia Pérez’s Oscar chances.)

In an Instagram statement posted on the same day, Gascón claims that her past tweets have been taken out of context or completely faked. She vehemently denies making tweets that were racist and “glorified Nazism.” While she acknowledges that she has things to improve on — including her way of expressing herself — she declares in all caps that she will never “ask for forgiveness for something that I am not.”

February 4, 2025: Variety reports that both Netflix and The Lede Company (Gascón’s PR firm, which also reps Zoe Saldaña) are no longer speaking with Gascón directly, opting to only communicate through her talent agent. According to Variety, Netflix has also decided not to cover her travel and styling costs for her to attend awards shows. As a result, Gascón is now expected to skip a number of events such as the AFI Awards luncheon, the Critics Choice Awards, the Directors Guild of America Awards, and the Producers Guild of America Awards.

Hours later, Gascón posts yet another Instagram statement. In it, she thanks her supporters and the Emilia Pérez team. After asserting that people want to subject her to “cancel culture,” she posed a question to “Hollywood experts” and journalists who have followed her career. Tagging dozens of outlets, she asked, “How do we move forward?”

February 5, 2025: Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard is distancing himself and his film from his leading lady. “It’s very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía,” he says. “The trust we shared, the exceptional atmosphere that we had on the set that was indeed based on trust. And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected.” Audiard says he hasn’t spoken to Gascón and doesn’t want to because she’s “in a self-destructive approach.” He also says critiques of his depiction of Mexico are missing the point of art? “Opera has psychological limitations,” he says. “It seems I’m being attacked in the court of realism.”

February 6, 2025: Gascón releases her sixth statement about how she’s going to stop speaking and let the film “talk for itself.” Alongside a photo of the cast and crew holding hands, she wrote in an Instagram caption: “Following Jacques interview that I understand, I decided, for the film, for Jacques, for the cast, for the incredible crew who deserves it, for the beautiful adventure we all had together, to let the work talk for itself, hoping my silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is, a beautiful ode to love and difference. I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way.”

Spain’s Goya Awards, their equivalent to the Oscars, stated that Gascón will not attend the awards show this Saturday. Gascón was not nominated however it was speculated she may attend the awards show in her home country.

February 9, 2025: After Emilia Pérez won several prizes this weekend at the Critics Choice Awards and GOYA Awards in Spain, none of the winners’ speeches mentioned or thanked specifically Gascón. However, in an more intimate setting on Sunday, Selena Gomez shared what the press tour experience has been like for her in wake of Gascón’s controversy. “Some of the magic has disappeared, but I choose to continue to be proud of what I’ve done, and I’m just grateful and live with no regrets,” Gomez shared at the Santa Barbara Film Festival on Sunday. “And I would do this movie over and over again if I could.”

February 13, 2025: Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria told The Town podcast that it was a “bummer” that the Gascón’s controversy is overshadowing the film. She continued, “It really has kind of taken the conversation in a different way [from] this incredible movie that Jacques Audiard — who is an incredible director — has made. It really is a bummer for a lot of the people, like Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. And our awards team did an incredible campaign for that movie.” However, she reiterates that Netflix has no regrets about Emilia Pérez: “If you ask me today, everything I know, we would still buy the movie today.”

February 24, 2025: A friend of Gascón’s told the New York Post that the actress will fly to Los Angeles to attend the Oscars. According to a source in Variety, Netflix will cover the costs of travel for Gascón to attend. The actress gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, saying, “I’m not sure how I feel, but I’m grateful to be back. I’m grateful to all those who’ve believed in me — to Netflix, the production company and my colleagues. We can close this beautiful and difficult path that began three years ago.”

March 2, 2025: It’s Oscars night and Emilia Pérez did not leave empty handed— despite losing big awards like Best Picture and Best Director. Zoe Saldaña scored Best Supporting Actress but not without ruffling a few feathers. During her post-win press room interviews, a Mexican journalist asked Saldaña how she felt about people saying the film was “very very hurtful to Mexican people.” In response, Saldaña stood behind the film that helped her get an Oscar while first apologizing to the journalist, “I’m very, very sorry that you and so many Mexicans felt offended, that was never our intention, we came from a place of love and I stand by that. I don’t share your opinion. For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico; we weren’t making a film about a country, we were making a film about four women, and these women could have been Russian, could have been Dominican, could have been Black from Detroit, could have been from Israel, could have been from Gaza, and these women were still very universal women, but are struggling every day, they’re trying to survive systemic oppression and trying to find their most authentic voices. So, I will stand by that.”

The other win for Emilia Pérez was for Best Original Song for “El Mal,” and it came with an unwanted performance. Camille and Clément Ducol, who accepted the award, began singing as the music tried to play them off. It might have been interpreted as encouragement to keep going, but they eventually took a bow and left.

And for those on the Karla Sofía Gascón watch, she skipped the red carpet but attended the show and laughed as Conan O’Brien joked about her tweets in the monologue.