Melissa Barrera, the 33-year-old Mexican actress, has been let go from her role in the upcoming movie “Scream VII” due to her Instagram posts discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Melissa Barrera had joined the iconic slasher franchise in 2022 and played the prominent role of Sam Carpenter in its fifth and sixth installments, alongside Jenna Ortega.
On Tuesday, sources confirmed to Variety that Barrera has been dropped from Spyglass Media’s upcoming sequel. This decision was primarily influenced by her social media posts, which have been critical of Israel and have raised accusations about alleged anti-Semitic undertones.
Barrera has published tens of posts on the subject. One of her posts read: “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” and other posts accused Israel of ethnic cleansing.
Another post read, “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp. Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water. People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
According to Variety, Barerra was accused of crossing the line into antisemitism with, “an antisemitic trope that Jews control the media.”
Variety included a statement Barrera had posted: “Western media only shows the [Israeli] side. Why do they do that, I will let you deduce for yourself.”
Spyglass Media released the following statement: “We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Scream 7 director Christopher Landon has, however, commented on Barrera being fired from the film; “💔 Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.”
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