Gina Carano, the actress and former MMA fighter who was fired by The Walt Disney Company for expressing sympathy to conservative viewpoints, announced her intentions to sue the entertainment company for wrongful termination.
As Fox News reports, the actress had a starring role in the Disney series “The Mandalorian” prior to her firing, which came after she made a post on social media comparing the current persecution of conservative Americans to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. In the post, Carano commented on how the first step towards oppression is to dehumanize a certain group of people so the broader population will feel no sympathy for them.
In the lawsuit announced on Tuesday, Carano alleges that her termination constituted “discriminatory treatment” and cost her “millions in lost income.” Her legal fees will be funded by X Corp., the new parent company of the platform formerly known as Twitter, which is owned by Elon Musk.
“A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated,” the lawsuit reads. Carano faced pressure at Disney for “refusing to support movements and ideologies with which she did not agree,” including transgenderism, Chinese Coronavirus lockdowns, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“But the rule of law still reigns over the Defendants’ empire,” the lawsuit continued. “And Carano has returned to demand that they be held accountable for their bullying, discriminatory, and retaliatory actions—actions that inflicted not only substantial emotional harm, but millions of dollars in lost income.”
Following the social media post in question, Disney’s subsidiary Lucasfilm, which oversees all “Star Wars”-related content, released a statement falsely accusing Carano of “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities,” calling her post “abhorrent and unacceptable.”
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. It claims that Disney’s treatment of Carano, which included “bullying” her and “trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues,” violated state laws in California. One law that was cited reads, in part, that “no employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.”
In a statement following the lawsuit’s announcement, X Corp said it would be funding Carano’s lawsuit due to its “commitment to free speech.”
“The online platform is proud to provide financial support for Carano’s lawsuit, empowering her to seek vindication of her free speech rights on X and the ability to work without bullying, harassment, or discrimination,” the statement reads.