Disney Slams Gina Carano's 'Star Wars' Lawsuit And 'The Mandalorian' Return

Actress Gina Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney after she was fired from the "Star Wars" Disney+ series "The Mandalorian."

In the lawsuit, funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the former MMA fighter sought to return to her role as Cara Dune and sought monetary compensation after being fired for posting her conservative perspective on social media.

In their lengthy legal filing in response to Gina Carano's lawsuit, the House of Mouse claimed that they decided to part ways with the former MMA fighter in 2021 because her decision “to publicly trivialize the Holocaust by comparing criticism of political conservatives to the annihilation of millions of Jewish people—notably, not ‘thousands’—was the final straw for Disney.”

Their legal team insists that her lawsuit should be tossed out “on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to Carano’s claims.”

In her own lawsuit, Gina Carano claimed that her “words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt right wing extremist” and asked Disney to let her return to her role as Cara Dune as part of her lawsuit. However, Disney made it clear that it was unlikely to happen, writing:

"Carano’s social-media usage sunk to its nadir on February 10, 2021. On that day, she reposted an Instagram post from user warriorpriestgympodcast. The post read: ‘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?’

“Disney had enough. The same day Carano grotesquely trivialized the Holocaust as comparable to sharp political disagreements, Lucasfilm announced that ‘Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.’ A month later, Disney’s former CEO explained that Carano’s views ‘didn’t align with Company values,’ including its ‘values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity, and values of inclusion.’”

Disney's response to the lawsuit was first reported by Deadline.

Before she was handed her pink slip, Gina Carano claimed in her lawsuit that Disney and Lucasfilm harassed and defamed her for allegedly refusing to align with their viewpoints on pronoun use and political issues.

After she changed the pronouns in her bio to "beep, bop, boop," Carano claimed that she was asked to meet with a representative of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination and issue a public apology.

According to the complaint:

“Defendants went so far as to try and convince Carano’s publicist to force Carano to issue a statement admitting to mocking or insulting an entire group of people, which Carano had never done.”

In a lengthy statement posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Carano described how her lawsuit against Disney came about.

"A couple [of] months ago @ElonMusk tweeted that if you had been fired from using the platform (X) for exercising your right to free speech, he would like to offer these people legal representation," she explained. "Quite the noble offer, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought anyone would take on my case against Lucasfilm/Disney. Still, I did respond back 'I think I qualify' & thousands of people agreed--but I did not expect anything. To my surprise, a few months ago I received an email from a lawyer who had been hired by X to look into my story & many others."

Gina Carano is suing for wrongful discharge and sex discrimination in the workplace. She is seeking a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her in her role as Cara Dune and at least $75,000, plus punitive damages for the emotional distress she alleges she suffered as a result of her public feud with Disney and the social media controversy that followed.