As officially unveiled by Marvel Studios on Saturday, Letitia Wright is the studio’s new Black Panther. During the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, her character Shuri manages to recreate the Heart-Shaped Herb, giving her the powers of Bast, the Marvel equivalency of the god Bastet. At the height of the pandemic, Wright retweeted a video that included anti-vaccination and transphobic views and save for an apology shared to Instagram, she’s avoided speaking about it the entire Wakanda Forever press tour.
Now, the Marvel star has broken her silence on the matter in a new profile with The Guardian, saying she’s moved past the situation. “I feel it’s something I experienced two years ago and I have in a healthy way moved on. And in a healthy way I’ve apologized and deleted my Twitter. I just apologized for any hurt that was caused to anybody,” she told the paper.
At the time, Wright retweeted the video in question adding, “If you don’t conform to popular opinions but ask questions and think for yourself … you get cancelled.”
After the internet response, Wright ended up deleting her Twitter account entirely. When pressed if she shared the same anti-vax and transphobic views as the video, the actor added, “Those are things that I am not and I apologized and I’ve moved on.”
She wouldn’t confirm whether she received the vaccine, despite Disney having a company-wide mandate in place for employees.
Now in theaters, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever follows Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba) as they fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda. It has yet to be seen where the Midnight Angels tie into the story.
Introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor, king of a hidden undersea nation, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livanalli.