"She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again."
Ted Cruz came to the defense of Gina Carano after she was axed from "The Mandalorian" for a since-deleted social media post.
"Texan Gina Carano broke barriers in the Star Wars universe: not a princess, not a victim, not some emotionally tortured Jedi," he posted. "She played a woman who kicked ass & who girls looked up to. She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again. Of course Disney canceled her."
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View StoryCarano replied to the tweet, writing, "Thank you Ted."
Others showed their appreciation for Cruz's comment as well, with one follower sharing, "She is awesome! Good for her for speaking up! And the censorship continues. Freedom of speech is gone."
But some criticized the politician's message.
"The issue is not with her character, who kicked ass. The issue is with the actor, who expressed horrific views that her employer does not want to be associated with," wrote a Twitter user.
Thank you Ted. 💜
— Gina Carano 🕯 (@ginacarano) February 12, 2021 @ginacarano
On Wednesday, hours after Carano's controversial Instagram Story, Lucasfilm dropped the actress, who played the beloved former Rebel Alliance soldier Cara Dune.
"Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future," a Lucasfilm spokesperson said in a statement. "Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."
According to Variety, Carano's original post read, "Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views."
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View StoryThe post was wiped from her account by Wednesday afternoon, per the outlet.
The move by Lucasfilms came after Carano was called to be dumped back in November when she appeared to criticize mask-wearing and suggested voter fraud occurred in the election. She was also under fire in August for making a joke about using pronouns in Twitter bios, which some critics called transphobic.
The fallout continued for Carano as she was also dropped from UTA on Wednesday.