Melissa Barrera is not holding back her true thoughts on Scream 7 three years after she was fired from the horror movie franchise for speaking out against Israel.
Three years after production company Spyglass dismissed Barrera from her lead role in the movie over her social media posts regarding the conflict in Gaza, the 35-year-old actor opened up about the backlash in a new interview with Variety, in which she criticized her former colleagues for siding with the people who fired her.
After Barrera’s exit, and co-star Jenna Ortega’s subsequent decision to drop out along with the director, Scream 7 scrambled to restructure the film by bringing back some of the franchise’s original stars, including Neve Campbell and Matthew Lillard.
When asked if she considers the people who agreed to do the movie after she was fired to be “scabs” who “crossed the picket line” in protesting the war in Palestine, Barrera responded: “Oh, one hundred percent. I think they all are. And they have to live with that.”
The In The Heights actor added, “The only way they were able to make that movie after what happened was to nostalgia-bait as much as possible.”
Melissa Barrera was fired from the Scream franchise after showing her support for Gaza (Getty Images)
The nostalgic return to the franchise’s roots appeared to work out — initial reports showed that Scream 7 smashed box office records to become the highest-grossing film in the long-running franchise with $97.2 million in worldwide ticket sales on its opening weekend.
However, Barrera questioned the validity of the earnings reported by Paramount and Spyglass.
Agreeing with theVariety interviewer’s statement that Scream 7 “sucked,” she said: “I know. And I think they lied about the numbers. I don’t think it made that much money.”
Neve Campbell returned to her role as Sidney Prescott in ‘Scream 7’ (Getty)
She continued: “But at the stage door, I sign Scream things every night. People who love me from those movies are coming to see the show, and they can’t ever take that away from me.”
Barrera starred as lead character Sam Carpenter in two Scream movies: Scream in 2022, which is also known as Scream 5, and Scream VI in 2023.
Despite her sudden departure from the series, she said she remains thankful to the films for their place in her career.
“The reality is that Scream is always going to be a big part of me because it was two years of my life,” she said. “It gave me a lot, and I’m grateful specifically to [directors] Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] who gave me that shot. That hasn’t been soured for me. They don’t have that power.”
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