Selma Blair says ‘no one answered my calls’ after anti-Islam comments lead to Hollywood fallout

Actress Selma Blair said “no one answered my calls” after an anti-Islam comment on Instagram she posted during the Israel-Hamas war in February 2024 cost her her representation, brand contracts and friendships.

His remarks come more than two years after Blair attacked then-Rep. Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, and current Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, in a now-deleted comment about their votes against legislation that would ban those involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel from entering the United States.

“Deport all these morons who support terrorists,” Blair’s response to a post by immigration reform advocate Abraham Hamra said in part, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“Islam destroyed the Muslim countries, then they came here and destroyed the minds. They know they are liars. Twisted justifications. May they know their fate.”

Although Blair apologized shortly after the comment sparked backlash, she said she lost friends, brand deals and payments related to a Super Bowl ad in the fallout.

“The brands I worked with were gone in a day,” Blair said at the Anti-Defamation League’s State of the Arts reception at the Jewish Museum in New York on Thursday.

“A few partnerships that I had spent years building were shelved. My agency was gone. My lawyer was gone. My publicist was gone. My literary agent was gone. My literary publicist was gone. My social media manager was gone,” she continued.

“No one answered my calls.”

Blair said she apologized “immediately” for a February 2024 online comment and refused to let it define her. She added that she had rebuilt her career since her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and was “not here to be sympathetic.”

Referring to the apology, Blair added: “I thought it then, and I mean it now, and I’m leaving the comment here, because the comment wasn’t the story. I have a team now that I would walk through fire with. It’s small, and it’s my team. I want you to know that before I tell you the part that isn’t better. It left a mark.”

The Jewish actress then explained the traumatic mark the ordeal left on her and her family, noting that the incident affected not only her but also her son.

“Fear overwhelmed me, and fear is contagious in a home,” she said. “The boy in this Christmas photo saw his mother afraid of the world. A boy who had already seen his mother go through chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, not knowing if she would come back to him.

“He’s a teenager now. He’s supposed to be embarrassed by me, not scared for me. Careers are coming back. Years of his childhood aren’t coming back.”

Blair then highlighted, but did not directly name, the recent controversy surrounding rapper Macklemore’s withdrawal from Ed Sheeran’s US tour after venues objected to Macklemore remaining on the lineup following his anti-Israel remarks.

She also referenced actor Javier Bardem’s petition calling for singer Pink to be removed as a UNICEF ambassador.

“A few weeks ago, of course, a movie star used his platform to start a petition against an artist who spent over a decade raising money for children,” Blair said.

“Her crime was to loudly oppose another artist who spoke out against Israel from a stage. She didn’t ask anyone to lose anything. Not a job, not a stage, nothing. She said what she thought.

“And for speaking her mind, a movie star spent her week trying to get her canceled,” she continued.

“This is what it looks like when we lose our humanity. A woman who raises money for her children stops being a person and becomes a target, and the people who cheer for her can no longer see her. They only see one side.”

Blair joined the cast of the upcoming film “Schmoolie the Deathwatcher” and announced Thursday that she would direct a documentary about anti-Semitism called “Hineni,” which she translated as “Here I Am.”

“Anti-Semitism must stop,” Blair told the audience. “Not to be managed. Not to be explained. Not to be weighed against anything else. Stop. Two years ago, the phone went dead. Tonight, it’s me speaking in a room full of my own people, saying the thing out loud. I’m Jewish. I’m still here. Hineni.”

Blair’s apparent cancellation following his remarks was noted by NewsBusters editor-in-chief Curtis Houck, who told Fox News Digital that “the elite media and their friends in Hollywood have made it clear that ‘Woke 1’ was never, really dead.”

“He’s very alive and he’s ready to ruin anyone’s career at any time,” he continued. “Especially if they believe they have ‘bad’ opinions about Israel and Islamists.”