Julianna Margulies has addressed the backlash she received for a series of inflammatory comments she made on a recent episode of the Back Room With Andy Ostroy podcast.
“I am horrified by the fact that statements I made on a recent podcast offended the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities, communities I truly love and respect,” read Margulies’s statement, a Deadline exclusive. “I want to be 100% clear: Racism, homophobia, sexism, or any prejudice against anyone’s personal beliefs or identity are abhorrent to me, full stop. Throughout my career I have worked tirelessly to combat hate of all kind, end antisemitism, speak out against terrorist groups like Hamas, and forge a united front against discrimination. I did not intend for my words to sow further division, for which I am sincerely apologetic.”
In the podcast episode, the Good Wife actress used bigoted language as she lashed out at Black and queer people for supporting Palestine.
“Before one bomb was dropped on October 7, before one bomb was dropped in retaliation for a brutal, barbaric attack, people were already on their bullhorns saying the Jews deserved it. What? Where’s your humanity? They put babies in ovens and killed them,” Margulies said. Host Andy Ostroy agreed, pointing to antisemitism and adding that there would be an uproar “if we use the wrong pronouns on college campuses.”
“Oh my God, forget it,” Margulies responded. “It’s those kids who are spewing this antisemitic hate that have no idea if they stepped foot in an Islamic country — these people who want us to call them they/them, or whatever they want us to call them, which I have respectfully really made a point of doing,” she said, adding, “It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded, and their heads played with [like] a soccer ball, like a soccer ball on the field.”
Margulies went on to share an anecdote about a film screening put on by what she described as a “Black lesbian club on the Columbia campus.” She claimed that the club put up signs that read “No Jews Allowed.” She appears to be referring to an incident in which a flyer and an email went out saying that “Zionists aren’t invited” to said screening.
“As someone who plays a lesbian journalist on The Morning Show, I am more offended by it as a lesbian than I am as a Jew, to be honest with you,” Margulies, who, to clarify, is not a lesbian in real life, said. “Because I wanna say to them, ‘You fucking idiots. You don’t exist. Like, you’re even lower than the Jews — (a) you’re Black, and (b) you’re gay, and you’re turning your back against the people who support you?’ Because Jews, they rally around everybody.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Margulies says that Black people who don’t support Israel have been “brainwashed.” She told Ostroy that Ken Burns’s documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust should be “mandatory watching” for the Black community.
“The Nazis were watching how the Jim Crow South was treating slaves and said, ‘Oh, great call, let’s do that playbook. That’s what we’ll do to the Jews.’ Which is also why, in the civil-rights movement, the Jews were the ones that walked side by side with the Blacks to fight for their rights, because they know,” Margulies said. “And now, the Black community isn’t embracing us and saying, ‘We stand with you the way you stood with us’?”
“Jews died for their cause. Where’s the history lesson in that? Who’s teaching these kids?” Margulies went on to ask. “Because the fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us to me says either they just don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews.”
Margulies is one of several celebrities outspoken in their support of Israel who’ve faced backlash, including Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman. But so far, the Hollywood figures who have been outspoken in their support of the Palestinian people are the ones who have faced professional consequences. Susan Sarandon was recently dropped from her talent agency, UTA, for pro-Palestinian remarks, while actress Melissa Barrera was removed from the Scream franchise after referring to the Israeli occupation of Palestine as “genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
The Cut has reached out to a representative for Margulies for comment.
This post has been updated.
