Aug
Lucy Lawless Criticizes Former Co-Star Kevin Sorbo Over Racist Kamala Harris Comment
Lucy Lawless, known for her role as Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess, has publicly condemned her former Hercules: The Legendary Journeys co-star Kevin Sorbo following a controversial and racially charged remark he made about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sorbo sparked outrage on Thursday night when he posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) that questioned Harris’s racial identity. He wrote, “If Kamala really is black, have her say the N-word, let the people decide for themselves.” This post, which Sorbo has since pinned to his profile, followed comments made by former President Donald Trump. Trump had falsely claimed at a National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago that Harris — whose mother is Indian and father is Jamaican — “happened to turn Black” and now “wants to be known as Black.”
Sorbo’s post was met with widespread backlash online, including a sharp response from Lawless. She chose to address the issue by sharing a troubling memory from their time together on the set of Hercules in the 1990s. “In his defense, I personally witnessed a time when Kevin Sorbo stuck up for a black man against white people,” she wrote on Friday.
Lawless recounted an incident from February 1995 when she and other actors were discussing current events on set. She mentioned a news story about the brutal murder of a woman in Los Angeles, speculating that a famous football player might be involved. Sorbo, whom Lawless referred to as “Peanut,” responded defensively, saying, “Hey! I knew Nicole and let me tell you… she was no picnic! BOOM.”
Lawless was referring to the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. O.J. Simpson, the former NFL star who had divorced Brown two years earlier, was a prime suspect in the murders but was acquitted in a highly publicized trial in 1995. Lawless noted that she and her castmates were shocked by Sorbo’s comments, adding, “I said, ‘She didn’t deserve to be stabbed to death.’ He replied, ‘I’m just saying, She was a piece of work.'” She reflected that the remark was memorable because of its harshness, adding, “#DontGetMeStarted!”
Lucy Lawless Criticizes Former Co-Star Kevin Sorbo Over Racist Kamala Harris Comment
This isn’t the first time Lawless has taken Sorbo to task over his controversial political statements. She previously criticized him for promoting a conspiracy theory that claimed “leftist agitators” were responsible for the January 6 Capitol attack, not Trump supporters. Sorbo had captioned his post with, “They don’t look like patriots to me…,” to which Lawless replied, “No, Peanut. They are not Patriots. They are your flying monkeys, homegrown terrorists, QAnon actors. They are the douchebags that go out and do the evil bidding of people like you who like to wind them up like toys and let them do their worst. #KeepingYourFilthyHandsClean #Enabler.”
In addition to starring in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, Sorbo and Lawless also provided voices for the 1998 animated film Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus.
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