If you’ve been anywhere near social media over the past few days, you’ve probably noticed a steady trickle of controversial X posts from Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón. Internet sleuths discovered that Gascón, the first openly transgender actor to be nominated for an Academy Award, has spent years denigrating other minority groups, even going so far as to call the 2021 Oscars ceremony – where Black British actor Daniel Kaluuya and Asian veteran actress Yuh-jung Youn took home the Supporting Actor trophies – an “Afro-Korean festival” and “an ugly, ugly gala.” After two days of sifting through a treasure trove of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic posts, Gascón finally deleted her X account. What comes next, of course, is up to the Academy, but some form of punishment for the actress is expected.
So why are Justin Bieber fans celebrating Gascón’s downfall?
To answer that question, you need only look to Gascón’s co-star, Selena Gomez. Gomez, a former Disney star turned pop idol turned Serious Actress, famously dated Justin Bieber for years before he ultimately married nepo-model and entrepreneur Hailey Baldwin. To say that fans of Bieber, widely known as ‘Beliebers,’ bear a grudge against Gomez is a bit of an understatement. When the cast of Emilia Pérez, which includes Zoe Saldaña and Adriana Paz in addition to Gascón and Gomez, collectively received the Best Actress Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the target on Gomez’s back extended to anyone associated with her, including Gascón.
That’s where the Arianators come in.
Arianators are the self-described fans of Ariana Grande, another pop superstar who, like Gomez, stepped away from the music studio and onto a film set for the 2024 hit movie musical Wicked. While there has never been much tangible friction between the women themselves, tensions between Arianators and Selenators (yes, they really call themselves that) have been simmering all year in preparation for a showdown for one of the five Best Supporting Actress slots at the 97th Academy Awards. Grande’s turn as Glinda in the film version of the Wizard of Oz-adjacent Broadway phenomenon proved to be a critical and commercial success, all but guaranteeing her a spot. Gomez ultimately missed out on a nomination, but with Emilia Pérez star Zoe Saldaña’s controversial decision to campaign as a supporting actress despite having the most screen time, it became clear that in order for Wicked to soar, other nominees might need to be knocked down a few pegs.
This proved especially true when, in December 2024, Lilly Jay, the ex-wife of Grande’s current boyfriend Ethan Slater, published a poignant article in The Cut about the abrupt end of her marriage and the pain of watching her former spouse promote his film with the same co-star he left her for. The implication was clear: Ariana Grande, who was married to real estate broker Dalton Gomez at the time, knowingly pursued Slater just after he and Jay had welcomed their first child together. While the singer has had overlapping relationships in the past, a messy private life is forgivable in the world of popstars. But the Academy takes itself seriously, and after receiving backlash for their mishandling of the now-infamous Will Smith and Chris Rock altercation, no one has much of an appetite for another avoidable scandal.
The backlash Grande received was fairly mild, but not for lack of trying on the part of Selena Gomez fans, who gleefully spread Jay’s article all over social media. Then came the bribery scandal where, depending on who you ask, either overzealous Arianators or Selenators posing as Ariana fans emailed Critics Choice voters in an attempt to buy Grande their vote. While these fan armies largely operate anonymously across social networks, making it difficult to point the finger at one individual or group, the intention is clear: Anything that is embarrassing for one star is good news for the other.
Oscar campaigns have always been targeted, ruthless, and, above all, expensive. But most of the maneuvering of previous years was done by industry professionals, consultants who earn millions of dollars making sure a film and its stars are as visible and reputationally pristine as a Republican congressman. By throwing singers with cutthroat fandoms into the mix, movie lovers have had to learn to navigate the mean and messy world of fan wars that are now poised to knock down other nominees like dominoes.
The day before Gascón’s past posts were discovered, a popular X account called 21metgala shared a recent interview of Gascón’s with a Brazilian news outlet, wherein Gascón accused people associated with fellow Best Actress nominee Fernanda Torres of attempting to tear down Gascón and her film. The account, which is primarily focused on fashion, accused Gascón of violating Academy rules which prohibit nominees from speaking negatively about other nominated films. The post spread quickly, coming to the attention of some of the platform’s most prolific users: Brazilian fan accounts. Because Brazilian users dominate the fandom space on platforms like X, they have immense reach and sway. These accounts often have contact with the teams of the celebrities themselves, and Torres in particular is considered something of a national treasure in Brazil. At the time the Gascón interview was posted, Torres was dealing with her own racism scandal, when users – many of whom are fans of Selena Gomez – unearthed an old video of the actress performing in blackface, or the purposeful darkening of one’s skin to portray a caricature of Black people. Torres apologized, but her campaign took a hit, and the timing of Gascón’s accusation, followed quickly by the publishing of her bigoted posts, conveniently took the heat off of Torres, whose actions were mostly forgotten in the aftermath.
If you’re having trouble keeping score, just try to put yourself in the pettiest mindset possible: any negative publicity for Torres is a boon to both the Wicked and Emilia Pérez campaigns, any scandal about the Wicked cast was good news for Emilia Pérez and Selena Gomez, and anything that embarrasses Selena Gomez is a win for Ariana Grande. (And, apparently, Justin Bieber.)
See? It totally makes sense…if you use the logic of a teenage fangirl in a million-strong army of serial harassers.
It’s hard to know what members of the Academy think of their newest awards season followers. And, in all fairness, they have their hands full after Karla Sofía Gascón offended practically every marginalized group in the country. But it would be naive not to acknowledge the impact of a public narrative on a nominee’s chances, and to do that, you must also acknowledge who is shaping that narrative. Is Hollywood ready for a new breed of publicists? Because these fans are certainly happy to do the dirty work.