Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón has issued a public apology after offensive social media posts of hers from several years ago came to light.

In the past few days, a string of old posts from the Emilia Pérez star on X began doing the rounds online, criticising subjects like Islam, the Black Lives Matter movement (including, specifically, George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a white police officer in 2020) and diversity at the Academy Awards.

Speaking to Variety on Thursday evening, Karla Sofía said: “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt.

“As someone in a marginalised community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain.”

The Spanish performer added: “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”

Karla Sofía’s original X posts were translated from Spanish by Variety, including one in which she branded George Floyd a “drug addict swindler”, and said his murder “served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider Black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins”.

“They’re all wrong,” she claimed.

Another now-deleted post was accompanied by a caricature of a Muslim family, including a woman in a burka, which said: “Islam is marvelous, without any machismo.

“Women are respected, and when they are so respected they are left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves. Although they dress this way for their own enjoyment. How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY.”

Per The Independent, she also wrote: “I’m sorry, is it just my impression or is there more muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels.

“Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”

After the 2021 Oscars, she also compared the awards show to a “ceremony for independent and protest films”, and said she didn’t “know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M,” seemingly referring to International Women’s Day, which is referred to as 8M in Spain.

Earlier this month, Karla Sofía became the first openly transgender actor to be nominated for an Oscar in an acting field.

She is up against Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here, The Substance’s Demi Moore, Anora star Mikey Madison and Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo in the Best Actress category.

HuffPost UK has contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organisation behind the Oscars, for comment.