Disney has resolved a legal dispute with actor Gina Carano over her firing from The Mandalorian, a spokesperson for Disney unit Lucasfilm said on Thursday.
Lucasfilm removed Carano from the Star Wars streaming show in 2021 over social media posts that the company at the time called “abhorrent and unacceptable” for “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities”.
The actor, who previously starred in the films Deadpool and Haywire and was a mixed-martial-arts fighter, had appeared to compare the treatment of conservatives in the US with the dehumanization of Jews in Nazi Germany.
“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?” she posted on Instagram before her firing.
The actor, who played Cara Dune, had previously faced fan backlash for mocking masks during the Covid pandemic and amplifying Donald Trump’s false claim that voter fraud caused his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. She was also dropped by her agency, UTA, amid the uproar over her online posts.
Carano sued Disney for wrongful termination in 2024 with backing from billionaire Elon Musk.
“The truth is I was being hunted down from everything I posted to every post I liked because I was not in line with the acceptable narrative of the time,” she wrote on Musk’s platform X when she announced her lawsuit.
In Thursday’s statement, the Lucasfilm spokesperson said Carano “was always well respected by her directors, co-stars, and staff, and she worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect”.
“With this lawsuit concluded, we look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms Carano in the near future,” the spokesperson added.
In her lawsuit, Carano alleged Disney had required her to meet with an LGBTQ+ rights group, and she had refused. After she also refused to meet with a group of LGBTQ+ employees of Disney, she was fired, according to the suit, which had accused Disney and Lucasfilm of “bullying, discriminatory, and retaliatory actions”.
In a statement posted on her X account on Thursday, Carano called the settlement “the best outcome for all parties involved”, adding: “I hope this brings some healing to the force.”
She also praised the Tesla billionaire, writing: “I want to extend my deepest most heartfelt gratitude to Elon Musk, a man I’ve never met, who did this Good Samaritan deed for me in funding my lawsuit.” Musk’s former business partner, Peter Thiel, admitted in 2016 that he had secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker that drove the news site out of business.
The settlement comes as corporations across the US have backed away from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and commitments while the Trump administration aggressively targets programs that support people of color and LGBTQ+ Americans.
Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, who was appointed by Trump, earlier this year said the media regulator was opening an investigation into whether the DEI practices of Disney and its ABC unit violated employment regulations.
Reuters contributed reporting
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