Former Star Wars actress Gina Carano announced Tuesday that she is suing the Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm roughly three years after she was fired over social media posts she had made.
Carano explained that she was contacted by a lawyer from X who helped her move forward with this lawsuit. X owner Elon Musk announced last year that those who were mistreated or fired from their employer “due to posting or liking something on this platform” would have their legal bill funded by X.
Carano, who had played the role of Cara Dune in the Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, was fired from her role in February 2021, with Lucasfilm stating online that her social media posts were “denigrating people based on their cultural & religious identities.” The actress has denied this, stating on X that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
“The truth is I was being hunted down from everything I posted to every post I liked because I was not in line with the acceptable narrative of the time,” Carano wrote on X. “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.”
Just before her firing, Carano had posted on Instagram that Jews in the Holocaust were beaten up simply for their religious beliefs, with the post questioning, “How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?” Some people online interpreted Carano’s post as comparing Republicans to Jews, though Carano has denied making such a comparison.
Carano was also accused of mocking transgender people with a social media post in which she wrote “beep, bop, boop,” imitating robots in the Star Wars universe. The actress reiterated that her post was not directed at transgender people but rather at “online bullies.”
“Hollywood says they support female representation & equal rights,” Carano’s post read. “Why then were my male co-stars permitted to speak without harassment & re-education courses or termination, but I was not afforded the same right to exercise my freedom of speech. Artists do not sign away our rights as American citizens when we enter into employment.”
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Musk himself has shared Carano’s lawsuit announcement on social media, encouraging users to “let us know if you would like to join the lawsuit against Disney.” The billionaire has feuded with Disney over the past year, going as far to suggest that current Disney CEO Bob Iger ought to be fired “immediately.”
Shortly after Carano was fired in February 2021, she stated in her first post-firing on-air interview that she was “not the only one that’s ever been bullied by this company.” She also stated that despite her firing, she would continue to “stay true to myself.”
