Karla Sofía Gascón responds to Conan O’Brien’s Oscars joke

Karla Sofía Gascón has praised Conan O’Brien’s performance as Oscars host after he made jokes about her controversial tweets.

The Spanish star, who was nominated for Best Actress for Emilia Pérez, fell from grace when past tweets which were deemed racist and Islamophobic resurfaced online. She stepped out of the limelight following the scandal but made her comeback at the Oscars on Sunday.

During O’Brien’s opening monologue, the comedian poked fun at the controversy, joking, “Little fact for you: Anora uses the F-word 479 times. That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist… Karla, if you’re going to tweet about the Oscars, remember, my name is Jimmy Kimmel.”

On Monday, Gascón complimented O’Brien on his “fantastic” hosting skills and kept up the joke.

“Thanks to the members of the @theacademy for the nomination for best leading actress, for the invitation to the gala; I liked it a lot, very entertaining and funny, especially its fabulous host Jimmy Kimmel, he is fantastic, every day he looks more like the great Conan O’Brien,” she wrote in Spanish, followed by a kiss emoji.

Gascón added that she “loved hugging so many friends and colleagues on this return” and congratulated her Emilia Pérez co-star Zoe Saldaña on her Best Supporting Actress win and Camille and Clément Ducol on their Best Original Song prize for El Mal.

She concluded her post, “Thank you Emilia Pérez for having taught me so many things.”

Gascón’s tweet controversy cast a shadow over the film’s awards campaign days after it scored 13 Oscar nominations. It ended up losing 11 categories, making it the all-time biggest loser in Oscars history, alongside The Color Purple and The Power of the Dog.