WATCH: Conan O’Brien Roasts Karla Sofía Gascón Over Racist Tweets at 2025 Oscars
Host Conan O'Brien speaks during the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Following a controversial awards season for Karla Sofía Gascón centered around racist tweets, she surprisingly attended the 97th annual Academy Awards. However, the show’s host, Conan O’Brien, didn’t let the Emilia Pérez star off the hook with a few jokes aimed at her controversies.
Gascón made history this year as the first openly trans woman nominated for Best Actress. Back in January, the Spanish actress’ historic moment was suddenly overshadowed by tweets she wrote between 2019 and 2021 that were racist, xenophobic, and bigoted. Among the resurfaced tweets, Gascón called the late George Floyd a “drug addict swindler,” constantly attacked the Muslim community, and even called the Oscars an “Afro-Korean festival” when the South Korean film Parasite won Best Picture in 2020. While trying to later apologize, Gascón continued to make things worse. “If I were a racist, I wouldn’t be working with Zoe Saldaña,” she said in an interview with CNN En Español.
Following Gascón’s controversies, Netflix reportedly distanced itself from her amidst the Oscars campaign for Emilia Pérez. While being nominated for Best Actress, Gascón reemerged at the 2025 Oscars. Comedian O’Brien made sure to call her out during his opening monologue. “Little fact for you: Anora uses the F-word 479 times,” he said. “That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist.” When the camera panned to Gascón, O’Brien added, “Karla, if you’re going to tweet about the Oscars, remember, my name is Jimmy Kimmel.”
While Conan O’Brien’s jokes may have called out Gascón’s controversy, it’s important to recognize that racism, xenophobia, and bigotry are never acceptable—regardless of the context in which they are discussed. Such behaviors should never be minimized.
Gascón lost in the Best Actress category to Anora star Mikey Madison. Her Emilia Pérez co-star Saldaña made history as the first person of Dominican descent to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. I’m Still Here also made history as the first movie produced in Brazil to win Best International Film Feature.