Mandalorian firing Gina Carano sues Disney backed by Elon Musk

Actor and former professional MMA fighter Gina Carano has filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Co.

and Lucasfilm for her wrongful termination from the series “The Mandalorian” in 2021. In the suit, which was filed Tuesday in federal court in California, Carano alleges she was fired from her role as rebel warrior Cara Dune for voicing right-wing opinions on social media. She is seeking a court order that would require Lucasfilm to reinstate her or compensate her at least $75,000. Carano claims in the suit that she suffered emotional damage and lost millions of dollars in income.

“A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated,” the lawsuit says. “And so it was with Carano.”

Elon Musk is helping cover the costs of the lawsuit, as confirmed by Carano on social media. She expressed her gratitude towards him and X for giving her an opportunity to bring her case to light. In a post, she denied that her past posts should be seen as controversial and said she was targeted as part of a “bullying smear campaign” intended to make “an example out of me.”

“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,” Carano wrote. “My words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt right wing extremist.”

Following a successful career in television and movies, Carano had been facing controversy since 2021 when she posted on Instagram likening modern political divides to the Holocaust. She then published a post that appeared to mock people who wore masks during the pandemic. The Instagram post was to the app’s “story” function, which disappears after 24 hours.

Carano's social media postings had previously sparked some scrutiny. In 2020, she appeared to suggest there was voter fraud during the presidential election in a post on X (then Twitter). In another post around that time, she appeared to mock transgender people by putting “beep/bop/boop” in her X profile after fans asked her to display her pronouns in her account’s bio.

Gene Schaerr, Carano's attorney, said in a statement that Disney "bullied Ms. Carano, trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues, and when that bullying failed, they fired her." Representatives for Musk, Disney, and Lucasfilm did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Carano also claims that Disney and Lucasfilm discriminated against her. The lawsuit cites social media posts from the late actor Carl Weathers, saying male colleagues were not held to similar standards. “Even though ‘the Force is female,’ Defendants chose to target a woman while looking the other way when it came to men,” the suit claims.

The suit comes less than a year after Musk pledged on X that he would pay for any legal case in which a person had been terminated for posting or liking something on his platform. “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know,” he wrote