Gina Strikes Back: Gina Carano Files Lawsuit Against Disney and Lucasfilm With The Help Of Elon Musk

Unfortunately for Gina Carano, she didn’t fit the mold of the super-woke Hollywood starlet, leading to fans calling for her firing on social media in February 2021, which was ultimately successful. Now, three years later, she's finally firing back.

On February 6, 2024, Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm. In a statement on X, Carano wrote, "After my 20 years of building a career from scratch, and during the regime of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, 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.' 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. 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."

Carano continued, "Hollywood says they support female representation & equal rights. 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?"

Now, with the help of Elon Musk, Carano is suing Disney. A few months ago, Elon Musk asked on X if anyone had been fired for exercising their right to freedom of speech on the social media platform and offering legal assistance. Carano replied, "I think I qualify." Now, after months of preparation, Carano is moving forward with her lawsuit against Disney for firing her from The Mandalorian.

Read her full statement below:

Who Is Gina Carano? And What Was the Controversy?

Before her acting career, Carano made a name for herself as an MMA fighter. You have to be a badass to be a successful female MMA fighter, so it makes sense that Carano plays a badass character in The Mandalorian. She began her acting career during her MMA career, but it didn’t really kick off until her retirement. Although she has been in blockbuster films like Deadpool, she’s most well known for her role as the mercenary Cara Dune on The Mandalorian.

The fan backlash against Carano began over the summer of 2020 after she was silent about the Black Lives Matter movement. Fans began to pressure Carano into speaking up (and some were bullying her by calling her a racist for not being vocal). 

She responded by writing, “In my experience, screaming at someone that they are a racist when they are indeed NOT a racist & any post and/or research you do will show you those exact facts, then I’m sorry, these people are not ‘educators.’ They are cowards and bullies.”

She came under fire again in September 2020 for not putting her pronouns in her X (formerly Twitter) bio. She responded to the criticism by joking that her preferred pronouns were "boop/bop/beep." 

This angered fans even further, as Star Wars fan and chair of Transgender Education Advocates of Utah Rebecca Green told Vanity Fair, “It’s surprising to me [that] Carano doesn’t recognize the vast gulf of privilege that separates her from the average trans person and the way her remarks play into that gulf by punching down at trans folks.”

Carano defended herself after the joke caused backlash on X.

The first calls for her firing started in mid-November 2021, when Carano tweeted a meme questioning why Democratic politicians want their constituents to wear masks. This led fans to call for her firing from The Mandalorian on X.

Fortunately, many fans came to her defense, as YouTuber and Star Wars fan Andy Signore tweeted:

Lucasfilm Gave into the Twitter Mob

Shortly after, however, #FireGinaCarano began trending again on X after the actress shared a post stating the American political climate resembles Nazi Germany. Her post was deleted, but screenshots circled on social media, along with renewed calls from the outraged X mob that Disney and Lucasfilm fire her from The Mandalorian.

Sources claimed Lucasfilm had been looking for excuses to fire Carano since November 2021, and this was the final straw. Lucasfilm released a statement the following week announcing that Carano had been fired, and called her social media posts “abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Closing Thoughts

Gina Carano was featured in Evie's own Print Magazine in 2021 with an exclusive interview, "On Pursuing Freedom In A World That Demands Conformity," and photoshoot where she discussed her experience getting fired and cancelled, battling depression, finding freedom, and reinventing herself. Get your copy here!

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