Selma Blair has described the full scale of what she lost after a single deleted Instagram comment, telling a crowd at New York’s Jewish Museum that she was left with almost nobody left to stand beside her.
Speaking at the Anti-Defamation League’s State of the Arts reception on Thursday evening, Blair detailed how the backlash from her February 2024 post cost her her talent agency, her longtime manager, her lawyer, her publicists, her book agents, and even her son’s godmother. “What erased feels like,” she said, explaining what she learned from the experience.
The Deleted Comment That Started It
Blair’s trouble began when she posted a reply under a video posted by Abraham Hamra, an immigration reform advocate, in the middle of the Israel-Hamas war. The comment was widely criticized as anti-Islamic, and it was deleted once it drew attention.
The text of the post, as Blair later recounted, read: “Deport all these terrorist supporting goons. Islam has destroyed Muslim countries and then they come here and destroyed minds. They know they are liars. Twisted justifications. May they meet their fate.”
She followed up with a public apology. “In my comment, I mistakenly and inadvertently conflated Muslims with Radical Islamists and fundamentalists, a terrible err in my words and resulted in hurting countless people I never meant to, and I deeply regret this,” she wrote. “As soon as my error was brought to my attention, I deleted the comment.”
She added: “Hate and misinformation are amplified so easily these days. This time by my own hands. In this instance, I erred in my writing and I fully recognize how I contributed to the Muslim community being understandably very upset. I respect and love all peace-loving communities, all over the world.”
By month’s end, she had parted ways with her team.
What Blair Actually Lost
Blair listed the losses at the podium in New York. She said the brands she worked with vanished within a day. Long-standing partnerships collapsed. Her agency was gone. Her lawyer was gone. Her publicist was gone. Her book agent was gone. Her book publicist was gone. Her social media manager was gone. Her son’s godmother was gone — her best friend.
“While some friends in the business quietly stood by me, most of them were gone. And of course, my manager, my supposed friend of 30 years, and a Jew, was gone too. No one returned my calls.”
The losses extended beyond her professional life. Blair said she felt the weight of the backlash personally, and that it affected her son as well.
“The fear got into me, and fear is contagious in a house,” she said. “He’s a teenager now. He’s supposed to be embarrassed by me, not frightened for me. Careers come back. Years of his childhood do not.”
A Movie Star’s Petition Against Pink
Blair’s speech also touched on other recent online controversies, though she did not name names. She referenced pro-Palestinian activist Javier Bardem and how he shared a petition calling for singer Pink to be removed as a UNICEF ambassador.
“A couple of weeks ago, of course, a movie star used his platform to push a petition against an artist who has spent more than a decade raising money for children,” Blair said. “Her crime was objecting, out loud, when another performer railed against Israel from a stage. She didn’t ask for anyone to lose anything. Not a job, not a stage, nothing. She said what she thought.”
“And for saying what she thought, a movie star spent his week trying to get her canceled. This is what it looks like when we lose our humanity. A woman who raises money for children stops being a person and becomes a target, and the people cheering can’t see her anymore. They only see a side.”
The Film She Is Making Now
Blair is set to star in a new film called Schmoolie the Deathwatcher, according to reports this week. Her current team includes the law firm Berlandi Nussbuam & Reitzas, Oren Segel and Jill Fritzo PR.
From the podium, she also revealed she is working on another film called Hineni, a Hebrew word that translates to “Here I am.” The documentary, she said, is about antisemitism.
“It’s a documentary about antisemitism, and as confounding and confusing as it seems to be because no one wants to talk about geopolitics but it seems to get intermingled completely, but I wanted to make this for the people who are not in this room,” she said. “[The film] goes to Israel, so people can see why that land is not an abstraction to us. And it talks to people who disagree with me, on camera and keeps the disagreement in the cut, because you don’t change a mind by only talking to people who already agree with you.”
She made the mission clear at the close of her speech. “Antisemitism has to stop. Not be managed. Not be explained. Not be weighed against something else. Stopped. Two years ago the phone stopped. Tonight I’m the one talking, in a room full of my own people, saying the thing out loud. I’m a Jew. I’m still here. Hineni.”
The Price of One Post
Blair’s account offers a grim portrait of how quickly support can disappear online. She spoke of the fear that settled into her household and the years of her son’s childhood that were lost to it.
The losses were not abstract. They were specific, and they were many:
- Her agency, CAA
- A manager of 30 years
- Her lawyer
- Her book agent and book publicist
- Her social media manager
- Her son’s godmother, her best friend
- Brand deals
- A supposed Super Bowl advertisement payment
- Friends in the business who stepped away
Blair’s speech was brief on the incident itself. She mentioned the controversy, the comment and the apology but kept it short, saying the comment was not the story.
“I’m not up here for sympathy. I know I’ve had a lucky life, and I’m working again. And of course we know that life is better now than it was then. I have a team now I’d walk through fire with. It’s small, and it is my team. I want you to know that before I tell you the part that isn’t better. It left a mark.”
The mark, she detailed, was trauma from the backlash, which she and her son endured together.
The speech closed with Blair making a public declaration of her identity and her refusal to let it be erased. She is a Jew, she said, and she is still here.
That, in itself, is a kind of victory.
See the video the story is built around at The Hollywood Reporter.
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