Black Panther star Letitia Wright has announced she's "moved on" from the uproar over a 2020 video she posted filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric.
Wright posted the video to Twitter in December of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and just as the roll-out for vaccines for the disease was getting under way.
The video featured online talk-show host Tom Arayomi, a self-professed "prophet" who traffics in anti-vaxx, homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, expressing skepticism about the vaccines and making claims about harmful things they could be doing to people's bodies.
It inspired an immediate backlash.
In a new interview with The Guardian to discuss the recently released Black Panther sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the British paper asked Wright about the controversy.
When Guardian journalist Simon Hattenstone touched on the vaccine flap, the Guyanese-British actor seemed reluctant to discuss it. Asked if she felt attacked at the time, Wright deflected by responding:
“I feel it’s something I experienced two years ago and I have in a healthy way moved on."
"And in a healthy way I’ve apologized and deleted my Twitter."
"I just apologized for any hurt that was caused to anybody.”
Hattenstone followed up by asking if she understood that her sharing Arayomi's video may have made her fans think she was a homophobic, transphobic antivaxxer. Wright answered:
“Those are things that I am not and I apologixed and I’ve moved on."
Putting an even finer point on the issue, Hattenstone asked Wright if she had been vaccinated, prompting her to make clear she did not wish to discuss the topic any further.
“I have apologized and I have moved on. Next question. Thanks.”
Wright's Twitter post inspired such an uproar at the time that even her fellow MCU star Don Cheadle publicly called it "hot garbage." Wright ended up deleting her Twitter account entirely after issuing an apology.
Much like that apology, Wright's Guardian comments have not been well received by some fans.
But many others have defended Wright, particularly after a Hollywood Reporter piece named her alongside actors accused of physical abuse and sexual misconduct as one of several stars with "personal baggage" because of her anti-vaxx flap in 2020.
Wright's performance in Wakanda Forever is generating Oscar buzz for the star, as is the film itself, which is expected to be a Best Picture nominee.
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