Actress Selma Blair said “no one returned my calls” after an anti-Islam Instagram comment she posted amid the Israel-Hamas war in February 2024 cost her representation, brand deals and friendships.
Her remarks come more than two years after Blair attacked then-Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and current Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in a now-deleted comment over their votes against legislation that would bar people involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel from entering the United States.
“Deport all these terrorist supporting goons,” Blair’s reply to a post made by immigration reform advocate Abraham Hamra said in-part, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Islam has destroyed Muslim countries and then they come here and destroyed minds. They know they are liars. Twisted justifications. May they meet their fate.””
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Although Blair apologized shortly after the comment drew backlash, she said she lost friends, brand deals and payment connected to a Super Bowl advertisement in the fallout.
“The brands I worked with were gone within a day,” Blair said at the Anti-Defamation League’s State of the Arts reception at The Jewish Museum in New York on Thursday.
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“A few partnerships I’d spent years building were shelved. My agency was gone. My lawyer was gone. My publicist was gone. My book agent was gone. My book publicist was gone. My social media manager was gone,” she continued. Blair added, “No one returned my calls.”
Blair said she apologized “right away” for a February 2024 online comment and refused to let it define her. She added that she has rebuilt her career since her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and is “not up here for sympathy.”
Referring to the apology, Blair added, “I meant it then, and I mean it now, and I’m leaving the comment there, because the comment was not the story.” “I have a team now I’d walk through fire with. It’s small, and it is my team. I want you to know that before I tell you the part that isn’t better. It left a mark.”
The Jewish actress went on to explain the traumatic mark the ordeal left on her and her family, noting that the incident impacted not only her — but also her son.
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“The fear got into me, and fear is contagious in a house,” she said. “The boy in that Christmas photograph watched his mother get scared of the world. A boy who had already watched his mother go through chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, not knowing if she was coming back to him. He’s a teenager now. He’s supposed to be embarrassed by me, not frightened for me. Careers come back. Years of his childhood do not.”
Blair then pointed to – but did not directly name – the recent controversy involving rapper Macklemore’s removal from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after venues objected to Macklemore remaining on the lineup following his anti-Israel remarks. She also referenced actor Javier Bardem’s petition for a petition calling for singer Pink to be removed as a UNICEF ambassador.
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“A couple of weeks ago, of course, a movie star used his platform to push a petition against an artist who has spent more than a decade raising money for children. Her crime was objecting, out loud, when another performer railed against Israel from a stage. She didn’t ask for anyone to lose anything. Not a job, not a stage, nothing. She said what she thought,” Blair said.
“And for saying what she thought, a movie star spent his week trying to get her canceled,” she continued. “This is what it looks like when we lose our humanity. A woman who raises money for children stops being a person and becomes a target, and the people cheering can’t see her anymore. They only see a side.”
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Blair has joined the cast of the upcoming film “Schmoolie the Deathwatcher,” and on Thursday she announced that she is making a documentary about antisemitism titled “Hineni,” which she translated as “Here I am.”
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“Antisemitism has to stop,” Blair told the audience. “Not be managed. Not be explained. Not be weighed against something else. Stop. Two years ago the phone stopped. Tonight I’m the one talking, in a room full of my own people, saying the thing out loud. I’m a Jew. I’m still here. Hineni.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Blair for comment.
