Letitia Wright took to her social media Tuesday to call out a recently published opinion piece claiming her “personal baggage” could hurt her chances at an Oscar in 2023.
“How dare you,” Wright wrote in an Instagram story directed at The Hollywood Reporter and Scott Feinberg, who wrote the article. “You mentioned my name alongside men who have been accused of abuse & sexual misconduct. This is vile behaviour. At this point a personal vendetta towards me. I’ve done nothing wrong but respectfully refused to do interviews with this publication. Stop your nonsense.”
The “Black Panther” actress was referring to an article that suggested Wright’s chances at winning an Oscar could be negatively impacted because she retweeted a video in 2020 that expressed anti-COVID-19 vaccine viewpoints, according to USA Today. After receiving a barrage of negative comments, Wright deleted the tweet and apologized.
“My intention was not to hurt anyone, my ONLY intention of posting the video was it raised my concerns with what the vaccine contains and what we are putting in our bodies. Nothing else,” Wright stated, according to People. (RELATED: ‘Black Panther’ Star Letitia Wright Deletes Social Media Accounts Following Anti-COVID Vaccine Backlash)
#LetitiaWright speaks out against a “nasty article” comparing her to actors who’ve been accused of abuse and sexual misconduct https://t.co/y4HScpMvzi
— ET Canada (@ETCanada) November 22, 2022
Other actors mentioned in the article were Brad Pitt, who has been accused of assault by ex-wife Angelina Jolie, and Will Smith, who infamously slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022. While Feinberg contended that Wright’s “baggage” is “far from the magnitude of Smith or Pitt, the controversy surrounding her tweet created enough “bad publicity” to possibly hurt her chances at an award.
“This personal agenda with your friends [at The Hollywood Reporter] is disgusting. I’ve remained silent as the world told me to kill myself two years ago for a video I posted and apologized for. I kept my head down and focused on my craft,” Wright continued in her Instagram post. “I’m still here, still making an impact, still creating projects that touch [people’s] hearts and it’s not going to stop,” she concluded. (RELATED: ROOKE: No Mercy, No Quarter: It’s Time To Crush The Branch Covidians)
The piece concluded with a note that since fear of COVID has subsided, “so too has the intensity of anger toward those who resisted or questioned safety measures.” Wright might therefore “face the least resistance” of the actors mentioned but “may also have the weakest case for a nomination anyway,” according to the article.