Actress Gina Carano was swiftly fired from the hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian on Wednesday night after she reshared a post that seemed to suggest having a differing political view in 2021 was similar to being Jewish during the Holocaust.
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” the production company said in a statement. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
The Daily Beast has also exclusively learned that Carano was dropped by her publicists at ID in fall of 2020 due to her social media activity.
The popular Star Wars franchise had finished season 2 and Carano’s character Cara Dune seemed poised for a return in some form. She had reportedly recently apologized in private to Disney for her posts in hopes that she could land her own spinoff series, reported We Got This Covered.
Earlier in the day, fans took to social media to call for the former MMA fighter, who often shares controversial takes on her social media, to be axed.
Carano had gone on a reposting spree, sharing memes that made fun of the mask mandate in California, compared former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial to Groundhog Day, and claimed Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.
But in arguably her most offensive post yet, Carano reshared to her Instagram story a photo of a Jewish woman in her undergarments screaming as she ran away from men and young boys armed with clubs. The famed image is from 1941 during the Lviv pogroms, where Jewish men and women were massacred by their own neighbors in modern-day Ukraine due to German influence in the area.
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children,” the post, which originated elsewhere, read. “Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”
It did not go over well, and Carano was quickly accused of amplifying anti-Semitic messages.
“This is f--king vile and unnecessary,” a tweet read. “Gina carano needs to be held accountable. the oppression my people have faced because of our religion and ethnicity is NOT the same as political disagreements.”
“The level of cognitive dissonance is appalling,” another added. Many of the tweets included the hashtag #FireGinaCarano and tagged the accounts for Disney, Star Wars, and Lucasfilm.
As backlash grew online, Carano quietly deleted the offensive posts from her Instagram story and began furiously liking tweets that applauded how she “counters all of the social media negativity with such grace.” Many of the praise-worthy tweets used the hashtag #istandwithginacarano and #weloveginacarano.
Representatives for Carano did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment by the time of publication.
But Carano has been down this road before.
She was previously accused of being transphobic when she updated her Twitter bio in apparent mocking of pronouns to say “beep/bop/boop.” She later apologized and said she was educated by her co-star Pedro Pascal, who recently publicly praised his sister for coming out as transgender.
“He helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios,” Carano wrote. “I didn’t know before but I do now. I won’t be putting them in my bio but good for all you who choose to.”
She also encouraged people to follow her on the app Parler, which had been embraced by right-wing groups and where many broadcast the siege on the Capitol in January. Over the summer, the actress also pushed QAnon, coronavirus, and Pizzagate conspiracies.
She attempted to explain her hot takes to the right-wing news outlet The Federalist on its radio show in January.
“The whole reason I started speaking out is because I feel like there is a large group of people that were being silenced this year and being forced to play this game of wokeism or whatever it is,” she said. “No matter who you voted for, no matter who you are, I want to create a platform where everybody can have an opportunity. Everybody.”
