Ted Cruz Defends Actress Gina Carano After Lucasfilm Fires Her For Offensive Comments

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) defended The Mandalorian actress, Gina Carano, on Twitter on Thursday. Carano was fired by Lucasfilm and is facing scrutiny for controversial social media posts.

“Texan Gina Carano broke barriers in the Star Wars universe: not a princess, not a victim, not some emotionally tortured Jedi. She played a woman who kicked ass & who girls looked up to. She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again. Of course Disney canceled her,” wrote Cruz.

On Tuesday, Carano shared a post comparing living with differing political views in America today to being Jewish during the Holocaust.

“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,” wrote Carano.

After posting this, Carano was fired by LucasFilm, the production company of The Mandalorian, and dropped by her talent agency, UTA. The post has since been taken down.

“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” a spokesperson for Lucasfilm said. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Since Cruz’s tweet in response to the situation, other Twitter users have been replying to Cruz, criticizing  him for his comments. One user said, “Disney didn’t cancel her for playing a kick-ass woman, they *hired her* to play a kick-ass woman.”

This is not the first time Cruz has made controversial statements on Twitter. In January 2021, Cruz engaged in a Twitter battle with actor Seth Rogan over misinformation about the Paris Climate Agreement.