Black Panther star Letitia Wright is having to issue an apology after finding herself mired in controversy over a video she posted to social media (in a now-deleted tweet). The video featured speaker Tomi Arayomi, a senior leader in Light London Church; in the 69-minute address, Arayomi questions the COVID-19 vaccine; casts doubt on Climate Change, and shows hostility towards both China and transgender people. from a speaker expressing some fairly inflammatory views on the COVID-19 vaccine, and other socio-political topics. Once fans started digging through the video, the reaction was pretty significant, with many Marvel fans wondering why Wright was sharing that video at all.
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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.
— Letitia Wright (@letitiawright) December 4, 2020
As stated, the reaction to the video has since inspired Letitia Wright to post an apology to Twitter, stating: “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.”
The controversy over this video Letitia Wright shared even dragged-in her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Don Cheadle. Cheadle at first jumped in to defend Wright on social media after angry fans were coming at her… then he actually sat down and watched the video in question. While Cheadle refused to disrespect Wright, he did admit it was hard to defend his co-star’s choices on this:
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. https://t.co/7uDlP1xwDL
— Don “bruh, you lost” Cheadle (@DonCheadle) December 4, 2020
“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.”
There’s a much bigger spotlight on Letitia Wright now, since the passing of her Black Panther co-star Chadwick Boseman. As Marvel tries to move forward with Black Panther 2, one of the most popular theories has been Wright’s character Shuri following her comic arc and inheriting the Black Panther mantle, when T’Challa is incapacitated. In other words: not the best time for controversy.
Black Panther 2 arrives on May 6, 2022.
