Actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano is suing Disney and production company Lucasfilm for wrongful termination and discrimination after she was fired from The Mandalorian for “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities” by sharing her right-wing opinions on social media in 2021. And — get this — she’s getting help from X overlord Elon Musk.
Carano, who plays Cara Dune in the Star Wars series, was fired after she shared opinions which offended fans of the show. In one post, Carano equated being a Republican with being Jewish during Nazi Germany, in another she expressed disdain for mask-wearing during COVID-19 and spread conspiracies during the 2020 American election.
Along with being fired from the show, Carano was dropped from her agency UTA.
In a statement posted to X — formerly known as Twitter — on Wednesday, Carano claimed that she was being “hunted down” for everything she posted because she was not “in line with the acceptable narrative of the time”.
“My words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt-right wing extremist. It was a bullying smear campaign aimed at silencing, destroying & making an example out of me,” she wrote.
Carano disputed the claim that she compared Republicans to the Jewish people in the holocaust and claimed that her words have been twisted. She also claimed that her male co-stars were allowed to “speak without harassment, re-education courses or termination” but sjhe was not “afforded the same right to exercise my freedom of speech”.
In the statement, she also revealed that her legal representation is being paid for on behalf of X, after she responded to a tweet by Elon Musk which read: “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know.”
Carano responded and eventually received an email from a lawyer hired by X to look into her claim.
“Turns out after sending them as much information as I could gather these past few months, my now lawyers and X believe wholeheartedly in my case and are moving forward,” she wrote, before thanking Musk and X for the support.
According to The Guardian, the suit filed by Carano is seeking $114,993.00 AUD ($75,000 USD) in damages and a court order that would see her re-hired to appear in The Mandalorian.
No statement has been made by Lucasfilm or Disney at the time of writing.
