Melissa Barrera has been removed from the cast of Scream 7 after openly posting in support of Palestine on social media.
The Mexican native, who previously starred in Jon M. Chu's In the Heights, joined the slasher film franchise in 2022 as lead Sam Carpenter, the estranged older sister of Jenna Ortega's Tara Carpenter. She reprised her role in the sequel Scream 6 and was slated to reprise the role once more in the forthcoming Scream 7, until Variety reported on November 21, 2023, that Spyglass Media Group, the company behind Scream, had dropped her from the cast.
In a statement provided to Variety following the news of Melissa Barrera's firing, a spokesperson for Spyglass stated it wasn't the actor's support of Palestine that caused her ultimate firing but the fact that her posts could be interpreted as antisemitic.
"Spyglass' stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion, or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech," the company's statement reads.
As collated by The Hollywood Reporter, one of Barrera's said posts, which was reportedly uploaded to her Instagram Stories, reads as follows: “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp. Cornering everyone together, with no where [sic] to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
Aside from media outlets, fans have been compiling Barrera's social posts on the matter for reference and further context. Seemingly in response to the news of her Scream departure, Barrera had shared a post to her stories that read: “At the end of the day, I'd rather be excluded for who I include than be included for who I exclude.”
Variety notes that Barrera seems to have been dropped not only by Spyglass but also her publicity team. Teen Vogue has reached out to both Barrera’s former publicists and a manager for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Scream 7 director Christopher Landon, who's set to take over from Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett for the upcoming installment, also weighed in on Barrera's removal from the cast with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "This is my statement: 💔 Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make," Landon wrote in the since-deleted post.
Barrera is not the only one in Hollywood who has been cut from a project or has faced backlash or termination in the workplace following their pro-Palestinian comments. Last month, Maha Dakhil, one of CAA’s top talent agents, also faced backlash and almost lost her job after referring to the conflict as “a genocide.” Tom Cruise, who is one of Dakhil’s clients, showed support for his agent, who later also issued an apology. However, as Variety reports, CAA has also “cut ties with a staffer and two clients over incendiary anti-Israeli social media posts.”
Actor Rowan Blanchard shared the Variety news card announcing Barrera's departure from the slasher franchise to her own Instagram Stories, expressing her disappointment. "This is very real. Every actor/person in Hollywood I know [who] has been vocal online about the cleansing of the Palestinian people since 2018 (during the Great March of Return) to now has faced consequences or given warnings from their agencies, management, and casting,” Blanchard wrote. “This sh*t is very insidious, and it goes on from the top down.”
Meanwhile, some Stranger Things fans are calling for a season 5 boycott after actor Noah Schnapp was seen openly interacting with Zionist paraphernalia in a video that has gone viral across social media.
