Gina Carano, the actress who played a significant part on the Disney+ Star Wars show The Mandalorian before being fired over a series of controversial social media posts, announced Tuesday that she has retained attorneys offered by Elon Musk and is suing Lucasfilm and Disney for wrongful termination.
“After my 20 years of building a career from scratch, and during the regime of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek,” Carano wrote in a post on X, “Lucasfilm made this statement on Twitter, terminating me from The Mandalorian: ‘Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm & there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural & religious identities are abhorrent & unacceptable.'”
Carano mentioned in the post that Elon Musk had posted on X “that if you had been fired from using the platform (X) for exercising your right to free speech, he would like to offer these people legal representation.” Now, she says, she is using a lawyer X hired to help her with her case against Disney.
Disney fired Carano in early 2021 after a string of social media posts the company believed to be objectionable — including claims that the 2020 United States presidential election had been rigged to ensure a victory for President Joe Biden and broad arguments against anti-COVID measures championed by Democrats like masking and vaccines — culminated in an Instagram post seemingly comparing conservatives to Jews in Europe during the Holocaust.
Carano disputed that characterization in her post, saying, “Look with your own eyes at what I posted and ask yourself, for example, where did I compare Republicans to the Jewish people in the holocaust?”
The text of the post in question:
Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children.
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?
The image under the text depicts a Jewish woman in Poland running, bloodied, from assailants.
Carano wrote that she hopes she will be able to resume her acting career.
“As for me, I would love to pick up where I left off & continue my journey of creating & participating in story-telling, which is my utmost passion & everything I worked so hard for,” she said. “It has been difficult to move forward with the lies & labels stuck on me . . . I am grateful someone has come to my defense in such a powerful way & look forward to clearing my name.”