Actor Melissa Barrera, who was unceremoniously fired from Scream 7 last year after her comments on the Israel-Palestine War, has said that roles in Hollywood dried up for her post that. In a new interview, the actor has addressed the fallout of the firing and fans’ reactions to it.
Melissa played Sam Carpenter in Scream (2022) and Scream 6 (2023). She was cast to reprise the role in Scream 7 right after the release of part 6. However, in November 2023, she was fired from the project days after her social media posts in support of Palestine described Israel’s actions in the Israel-Hamas war as “genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
In a new interview with The Independent, Melissa recalled that time, “It was quiet for, like, 10 months.“I was still getting offers for small things here and there – I’m not going to lie and say there was nothing – but [the message] was, like, ‘Oh, she probably doesn’t have work, she’ll say yes to anything.’”
The actor, however, says that she does not resent the makers of Scream for showing her the door as ‘they gave me a lot in my career.’ However, she does add that one of the repercussions has been a lot of sympathy and pity from fans she meets at conventions. She said, “They’re like, ‘What they did to you is so messed up, I’m so sorry that happened!’ And it’s something, I think, that’s never going to end. Because the franchise is never going to end. So while I still have so much love for [those movies], the reminders of that very sour moment make it a little bit weird.”
The 34-year-old actor began her career in the Mexican telenovelas Always Yours Acapulco (2013) and So Much Love (2015). She moved to mainstream Hollywood in 2018, earning recognition with the series Vida. But it was Scream that put her on the map as a fan-favourite actor. She will be next seen in The Collaboration, a biographical drama about the partnership of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
