Black Panther's Letitia Wright receives backlash for sharing an anti-vaccination video

4 December 2020, 14:32

Letitia Wright pays tribute to Black Panther co-star Chadwick Boseman

By Jazmin Duribe

Letitia's Avengers co-star Don Cheadle has blasted her for sharing the video.

Letitia Wright is receiving backlash for sharing an anti-vaccination video on Twitter.

The video was from an episode of YouTube panel series On the Table. Presenter Tomi Arayomi claimed that the number of coronavirus-related deaths had been inflated to keep people in fear and disputed the safety of the new coronavirus vaccine, and the safety of vaccines in general.

"I don't understand vaccines medically, but I’ve always been a little bit of a skeptic of them," he said. Tomi (who is not a doctor and has not got a medical background) also made transphobic comments in the video.

On Friday (Dec 4), the Black Panther actress shared a link to the video on Twitter alongside the praying hands emoji. The tweet now appears to have been deleted. Letitia was immediately met with backlash for the post and her name started trending on Twitter.

READ MORE: Black Panther cast lead tributes to Chadwick Boseman who has passed away aged 43

In response to the criticism, Letitia tweeted: "If you don’t conform to popular opinions. but ask questions and think for yourself....you get cancelled." She then clapped back at multiple people beneath her tweet who called her out for "spreading misinformation".

One fan urged her to back up her questioning with actual scientific evidence. She replied: "Totally respect what you are saying here. I’ve also heard from medically qualified doctors who got their articles and videos taken down. Am I still wrong to question whats going on?"

And when some tried to explain what "luciferase" is (an ingredient allegedly included in the vaccine) to her (it's a "generic term for the class of oxidative enzymes that produce bioluminescence, and is usually distinguished from a photoprotein") she replied: "The name Lucifer is an interesting choice *opens bible*."

Don Cheadle has now called out his Avengers: Endgame co-star on Twitter. In a now-deleted tweet, he quote-tweeted Letitia, and said: "Bye Letitia."

A Twitter user instructed Don to read up on the content of the video, and he replied: "I will. but even if it rankles me there’s no way i’m throwing her in the dustbin."

People also urged Don to publicly call out Letitia over the transphobic content in the video, and he tweeted: "If she went transphobe, fire away. but i’ll personally take it to her if she said something crazy. not to twitter. that’s how i do it with friends and how i hope they do it with me if i fkkk up. trying to find it now."

After reading up on it, he added: "Jesus… just scrolled through. hot garbage. every time i stopped and listened, he and everything he said sounded crazy and fkkkd up. i would never defend anybody posting this. but i still won’t throw her away over it. the rest i’ll take off twitter. had no idea."

Letitia has now clarified her reasoning for posting the video in another tweet. She said: "My intention was not to hurt anyone, my ONLY intention of posting the video was it raised my concerns with what the vaccine contains and what we are putting in our bodies. Nothing else."