Former Strikeforce and Elite XC star Gina Carano is out of a job after a series of controversial posts made on her social media account.
The 38-year-old former fighter has been dropped from her role as Rebel trooper Cara Dune on the Star Wars spinoff series “The Mandalorian,” which currently airs on Disney+.
Lucasfilm representatives confirmed Carano is no longer employed by the company and there are no plans to bring her back for the upcoming third season of the show.
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” Lucasfilm said in a statement released on Wednesday. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
According to Deadline, Carano’s agents at United Talent Agency have also parted ways with her in the wake of the controversy.
Earlier on Wednesday, the hashtag #FireGinaCarano trended worldwide after now-deleted posts on her Instagram account where she seemingly compared living as a conservative in the United States to the atrocities suffered by Jews during the holocaust in Nazi Germany.
Below is the text of a post on Carano’s Instagram account that was later removed:
“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.”
Calls for Carano to be fired from “The Mandalorian” started almost immediately after her social media post went viral, but it wasn’t the first time the ex-fighter got into hot water over statements she made.
This past November, the same #FireGinaCarano hashtag trended on Twitter after Carano shared a series of anti-mask posts as well as additional messages denying the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. She also came under fire after she added “boop/bop/beep” to her Twitter account to mock the use of gender pronouns like “she/her/hers,” or the use of gender nonconforming pronouns like “they/them/theirs.”
Carano had also posted similar anti-mask posts this week along with the anti-Semitic message that ultimately led to her dismissal from “The Mandalorian.”
“They have been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw,” a source told The Hollywood Reporter after Lucasfilm released the statement regarding Carano’s dismissal.
Carano previously appeared in several episodes during the first season of “The Mandalorian,” which was later nominated for Best Drama Series at the 2020 Emmy Awards. She returned for the second season of “The Mandalorian,” which has also received overwhelmingly positive reviews and a recent nomination for Best Drama Series at the 2021 Golden Globe Awards.
There had been rumors swirling that a new series called “Rangers of the New Republic” from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, who are also the executive producers on “The Mandalorian,” could have potentially starred Carano before the latest controversy.
Carano’s firing comes 14 years to the day after her fight with Julie Kedzie at “EliteXC: Destiny,” that was widely credited with elevating women’s MMA to the mainstream.
Feb10.2007
14 years ago today,
Gina Carano & Julie Kedzie competed in the first Women’s MMA fight in history to air on live television. pic.twitter.com/qVkcYTdZ5J
— MMA History Today (@MMAHistoryToday) February 10, 2021