The former MMA fighter and Mandalorian star was criticized for her controversial tweets and conspiracies about QAnon, the 2020 election and COVID-19.
Gina Carano came under fire recently for her social media posts pushing several dangerous conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19, the 2020 Presidential election, and the QAnon movement, which the FBI labelled as a “potential domestic terror threat.” Carano was trending on Twitter for the wrong reasons, with the #FireGinaCarano hashtag being used in response to the Mandalorian star’s far-right conspiracy mongering.
Carano also faced criticism after referencing R2-D2 and adding “boop/bop/beep” to her Twitter name in order to mock the use of preferred gender pronouns.
The former MMA fighter turned actress discussed the social media backlash on a mostly Star Wars-centric interview, saying she’s unsure why she has that negative effect on people.
“I’m going to stay around, and if my presence bothers you, okay, but also a lot of people are not bothered by my Twitter presence or my social-media presence,” Carano said. “So I focus more on those people. I don’t know, I bring the fire out in people. I bring stuff out of people and I’m not sure why.
“It happens in my family too, by the way, if I get involved in an argument, then people usually don’t talk to each other for a month, and we’re sorry.”
Carano also spoke about her passion and this “dream” she wants to fulfill, which seems to be centred on using her platform to spread similar ideologies. According to the Disney and Star Wars actress, people shouldn’t trust “machines” like “big news” or “big tech” and her goal is to let people know “where the news should come from.”
“I have a plan moving forward. I’ve just followed my heart up until now. I have a dream, that I actually want to fulfill. I have a dream, which has given me so much fire and focus. I want to encourage people like you,” Carano said. “You have a plan. You’ve been through a lot that people probably don’t even know about. I want to encourage like ‘this is where the news should come from.’ Whatever you want to do, I hope you do it, and I hope you have the confidence and the spirit to just embrace it, and go for it.
“Because we can’t rely on other people anymore. We can’t rely on big news, we can’t rely on big tech, we can’t rely on anything. We have to rely on who we’re meeting, and who I’ve met this year … that’s where I’m going to get my news from, where I’m gonna support. I’m going to throw my support that way because that’s who we need to encourage, because we can’t keep on supporting these machines that are broken.”
After being criticized for spreading multiple false news stories and conspiracies, Carano decided to join the controversial social media app Parler, which is popular among far-right conservatives. The app has since been banned by Apple, Google, and Amazon for violating policies and allowing content that promoted crime and violence.
Near the end of the interview, Carano briefly spoke about freedom, which seemed in line with her previous anti-mask stance and COVID-19 conspiracies.
“Florida looks really appealing. Coming from California, it looks like it’s just amazing there,” Carano said. “I mean, are you guys roaming the streets freely as free human Americans?”
Carano, 38, was the previous “face of Women’s MMA.” She suffered her first career loss in 2009 against Cris Cyborg, then retired with a 7-1 MMA record.
After her fighting career, Carano had multiple acting roles in big budget films like Fast and Furious 6 and Deadpool, before landing a big role with the popular Star Wars series The Mandalorian in 2019.