Carano was fired in 2021 from the Star Wars TV series in which she played Cara Dune.
Gina Carano has filed a lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm over her firing from The Mandalorian, and she's being backed by X CEO Elon Musk.
According to court documents obtained by ET, Carano claims she was targeted, harassed, publicly humiliated, defamed and ultimately fired from her role in the Star Wars TV series because she made political statements on X that "did not align with what they believed was an acceptable viewpoint."
Carano went on to claim that she was discriminated because Disney and Lucasfilm targeted her differently from her male co-stars "who also made public, political statements on social media." She claims those male co-stars were "not disciplined, let alone terminated." Carano, who played Cara Dune, was fired in February 2021. She was later dropped by her talent agency, UTA.
Specifically, Carano brought up her former co-star, Pedro Pascal, whom she claimed took to Instagram on Aug. 16, 2017 and compared then-President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. For that and other alleged instances, Carano claims Disney and Lucasfilm "did not comment on, let alone condemn Pascal's social media comments."
ET has reached out to Disney and Lucasfilm for comment.
One day prior to her firing, Carano shared two controversial political posts to social media that generated swift backlash among fans. In one post, Carano compared the divided American political climate to Nazi Germany, with remarks likening conservative Republicans to Jewish people being targeted for their beliefs.
"Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?" stated Carano's post, which was a screenshot of someone else's Instagram post.
Carano also shared a meme featuring an image of a person's face covered in masks that mocked California's coronavirus pandemic-related mask mandates.
Following her February 2021 firing, a Lucasfilm spokesperson told ET, "Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."
Carano claims the defendants "made it known they did not agree with or approve of [her] political views on the Covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates." She claims "another source of constant harassment was the demands that she put pronouns in her profile."
In response to this "bullying" from those on social media, Carano says in court documents that she "put three simple words in her Twitter profile, a reference to sounds a droid would make, 'boop/bop/beep,'" which she deleted a short time later.
In deleting the post, Carano explained in a Sept. 12, 2020 tweet, "Yes, Pedro & I spoke & he helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios. I didn't know before but I do now. I won't be putting them in my bio but good for all you who choose to. I stand against bullying, especially the most vulnerable & freedom to choose."
Carano claims that tweet brought forward more harassment and bullying, simply because "I won't put my pronouns in my bio to show my support for trans lives." She added in the tweet, "After months of harassing me in every way, I decided to put 3 VERY controversial words in my bio..beep/bop/boop. I'm not against trans lives at all. They need to find less abusive representation."
After a series of tweets in which she sought to explain her position on pronouns in bios, Carano claims she made "yet another attempt to counter the claims of her being 'transphobic'" with a post in which she reiterated that "Beep/bop/boop has zero to do with mocking trans people [and everything] to do with exposing the bullying mentality of the mob that has taken over the voices of many genuine causes." She added the hashtag "AllLoveNoHate."
In response to all of these tweets, Carano claims Disney and Lucasfilm "were not satisfied" and they "subjected [her] to long phone calls demanding an explanation and criticizing her for not embracing what some see was mandatory solidarity with a vocal element of the transgender activist community."
She claims she was forced to enter a "re-education" program and required to meet with members of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination), "something she willingly did," she claims. Following a 90-minute Zoom meeting with GLAAD, she claims GLAAD reps "provided positive feedback" to Disney and Lucasfilm, but the defendants "continued to demand a public apology."
Carano claims in court documents that the defendants "went so far as to try and convince [her] publicist to force [her] to issue a statement admitting to mocking or insulting an entire group of people, which [she] had never done."
The actress claims she was then told she'd be required to participate in a Zoom call with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and 45 employees who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, "going as far as to say that her willingness to endure such harassment and humiliation was a 'litmus test' for her."
Carano claims she declined to take part in the Zoom call but offered to take "5 or 6 to dinner so they could talk face-to-face" but the "defendants refused the offer."
Carano is suing for discrimination, wrongful termination and for Lucasfilm to recast her. In a lengthy tweet announcing the lawsuit, Carano said she filed the lawsuit because she "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."
In that same tweet, Carano explained that she replied to a Musk tweet in which he said he would fund legal representation to anyone who had been fired for expressing their views on his platform.
"To my surprise, a few months ago I received an email from a lawyer who had been hired by X to look into my story & many others," Carano continued in her tweet. "Turns out after sending them as much information as I could gather these past few months, my now lawyers & X believe whole-heartedly in my case & are moving forward."
Less than an hour after Carano announced the lawsuit on X, Musk subtweeted, saying, "Please let us know if you would like to join the lawsuit against Disney."
Carano's attorney, Gene Schaerr, said in a press release that "Disney bullied Ms. Carano, trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues, and when that bullying failed, they fired her." He added, "Punishing employees for their speech on political or social issues is illegal under California law."
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