Hollywood hate took another loss as an Academy Award-winning actress got booted from her talent agency over “atrocious” antisemitic rhetoric.
Likely to wear it as a badge of honor, 77-year-old actress and radical activist Susan Sarandon received a lesson in actions having consequences after aligning herself with Hamas sympathizers. Appearances and speeches given at anti-Israel protests recently were treated as beyond acceptable by United Talent Agency (UTA) which reportedly dropped their client of nearly a decade.
“Great news,” posted the non-partisan group StopAntisemitism on social media, “Susan Sarandon has been DROPPED by top Hollywood agency UTA after her atrocious statement of Jews finally ‘getting a taste of how it feels to be Muslim in America.”
As had been reported, appearances at a number of New York City protests included the actress, latest of “Blue Beetle,” partaking in the notorious “from the river to the sea” chant and telling attendees, “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”
“I stand here in my cruelly given white privilege, to say that you don’t have to be Palestinian to stand with the Palestinian people,” she asserted.
Sarandon had been quoted by The Guardian as bolstering others to have the “courage to speak out” as she said, “People are questioning, people are standing up, people are educating themselves, people are stepping away from brainwashing that started when they were kids.”
Among the reactions to the rhetoric was Boundless Israel nonprofit co-founder Aviva Klompas who posted on X, “When Susan Sarandon said that Jews ‘are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country,’ she was saying that American Jews have it coming — that we don’t deserve to live free from harassment and assault.”
Joining the actress in taking heat for hate was 33-year-old “Scream” star Melissa Barrera who had reportedly been “quietly dropped” by Spyglass Media Group from the next installment in the franchise after she had referred to Israel as colonizers guilty of “GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING” for their counteroffensive following the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas that resulted in the slaughter of more than 1,400 men, women and children.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp. Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water…People have learnt nothing from our histories,” wrote Barrera on Instagram. “And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
Additionally, Creative Artists Agency’s Maha Dakhil, whose clients include the likes of Tom Cruise, Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon, had “resigned her board seat and stepped back from her role as co-head of the motion picture department after she was criticized for sharing a social media post that accused Israel of genocide. She deleted her post and later apologized,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Reacting to Sarandon’s cut from UTA, Newsweek contributor Joel M. Petlin said, “I used to believe that Hollywood is divided between talented people and untalented people. Now I see that the real division is between actors who stand with the victims of Hamas terrorism, and those like @SusanSarandon who have abandoned morality and stand with the Antisemites.”