Marvel star Evangeline Lilly came out against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Thursday, and discussed her attendance at a recent protest against them.
Lilly, known for playing The Wasp in Marvel's Ant-Man franchise, said on Instagram she was recently in Washington, D.C., for a rally to "support bodily sovereignty" and Canadian truckers who have been objecting to the government's COVID-19 vaccine rules. At this rally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered controversial remarks comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust and suggesting unvaccinated people are worse off than Anne Frank.
On Instagram, Lilly shared photos from the event showing signs calling for "vaxx choice" and "medical freedom," and said she believes "nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will, under threat of" anything, including loss of employment. "I understand the world is in fear," she said, "but I don't believe that answering fear with force will fix our problems." The actress added, "I was pro-choice before COVID and I am still pro-choice today."
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Lilly, who also starred as Kate on ABC's Lost, received criticism early on in the COVID-19 pandemic after she claimed the coronavirus was just "a respiratory flu" and said she wasn't isolating because of it. She later apologized for the "dismissive" and "arrogant" comments.
Previously, fellow Marvel star Letitia Wright shared an anti-vaccine video in December 2020. The firestorm over the video led the Black Panther actress to leave Twitter, but last October, a report said she was continuing to espouse anti-vaccine views on the set of the Black Panther sequel. Wright denied this, calling the report "completely untrue," but she hasn't said whether she is vaccinated.
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