In an industry of carefully-curated social media accounts, she’s never shied away from telling her millions of followers what she really thinks.
But now Kate Beckinsale has claimed her agent fired her for ‘liking’ a post calling for a ceasefire in Gaza while standing by male client Mark Ruffalo for expressing the same views.
The British actress, 52, decried it as sexism in Hollywood in a scathing comment on Instagram and alleged that she had reached out to Ruffalo about the apparent double standard but was ‘ignored.’
Writing underneath a post in which Ruffalo was promoting forthcoming drama film Palestine 36, about the 1936 Arab Revolt, she applauded him for his activism but said she had paid a ‘price’ that he had not.
Ms Beckinsale, who later deleted the comment, was previously represented by the powerhouse United Talent Agency, which still represents Ruffalo.
The same agency dropped Susan Sarandon as a client in 2023 after she spoke at several pro-Palestine rallies in the US.
‘Gosh, it must be so nice not to be fired by your agent for liking a post about a ceasefire and not supporting the murdering of children,’ Ms Beckinsale wrote.
She said that ‘having a penis in Hollywood really counts for a lot’ because ‘you’ve not been fired by the same agent that I had.’
She said the agent had ‘sent me a gift the week before, so we didn’t have any beef,’ leaving her to deduce that the firing was down to her social media activity.
‘I liked a post about a ceasefire and I’ve got fired on the same day as Susan Sarandon was fired, two days after the end of the strike after nine months of none of us being able to work at all,’ she said, referencing the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strikes.
‘I was dealing with the fact that on top of my mother having been told she had six weeks to live with brain cancer, and being a carer for both of them, the day before my stepfather had had a catastrophic stroke on top of two types of cancer,’ she said.
Ms Beckinsale, whose mother Judy Loe died in July last year and stepfather Roy Battersby the previous January, said she was ‘fired in two sentences after 12 years of friendship.’
She claimed that her agent knew ‘what I was dealing with, alone’ and still chose to cut ties while she was caring for her elderly parents.
Claiming that she had only done ‘one millionth’ of what Ruffalo had ‘laudably done’, she said she had paid the price for ‘having a vagina.’
It is ‘interesting’ to her and to ‘other female actors and women’s advocate groups’, she said.
She went on to say that she was ‘okay with him ignoring me,’ but that she felt there was a clear ‘male privilege even in the good guys.’
She clarified that she was not ‘blaming Mark for this’ and insisted that she does ‘really and truly’ support the actor, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Israel.
In January he was one of dozens of actors and actresses who signed a letter addressed to Israel and world leaders to restore medical care in Gaza.
Ms Beckinsale, who is mother to Lily Sheen, 27, from her relationship with Michael Sheen, is now represented by New Standard Branding agency.
The Mail has reached out to Ruffalo’s representatives for comment.
