Actress Anna Camp has apologized after sharing a social media post related to the film Scream 7 that opposed ongoing boycott efforts related to the termination of franchise star Melissa Barrera.
Camp, who plays Jessica Bowden in the film, reposted an image on her Instagram Story over the weekend that criticized the boycott campaign. The 43-year-old South Carolina native later deleted the post and addressed the situation on X, stating that the repost did not reflect her personal views.
“It has come to my attention that I reposted someone else’s story that does not reflect my personal beliefs,” Camp wrote. “I have since deleted the repost because I absolutely meant no harm. I’m sorry to anyone who was affected.”
View this post on Instagram
The original post by the SCREAM with Ryan C. Showers podcast read, “The boycott didn’t work. The critics hate didn’t work. The pathetic leaks didn’t work. What worked was audiences coming out and making the film a success.”
Audiences widely appreciated Barrera, who played Sam Carpenter, one of the main characters of the 2022 Scream reboot.
While actress Jenna Ortega, who played Tara Carpenter, the sister of Barrera’s character, left before Scream 7 started production, Barrera was terminated from the film by Spy Glass Productions.
A spokesperson from the company spoke to Variety and said that the makers will not tolerate any form of hate speech, including “false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Barrera took to Instagram and shared some pro-Palestine posts following the war in Gaza. She posted on her Instagram stories, “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
In additional posts, Barrera said that she had been seeking out information from Palestinian perspectives, arguing that Western media coverage was one-sided and that social media algorithms limited what she was seeing.
“Censorship is very real. Palestinians know this; they know the world has been trying to make them invisible for decades. Keep sharing,” she wrote in one of her posts.
She also stated, “I too come from a colonized country, Palestine will be free,” referencing her Mexican heritage.
In February, demonstrators gathered outside the Scream 7 premiere at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles in response to Barrera’s 2023 firing from the film. A mass protest was organized by Entertainment Labor for Palestine, CODEPINK LA and Jewish Voice for Peace-Los Angeles. Protesters condemned the way big production houses handled pro-Palestinian voices and the response to the war.
The crowd waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans criticizing the studio’s handling of pro-Palestinian voices.
Barrera responded by condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia, and rejecting hate or prejudice against any group. She insisted that governments should be open to criticism and said that she would continue advocating for peace and human rights. “Silence is not an option for me,” she wrote.
Barrera’s exit reportedly led to as much as $500,000 in rewrites for Scream 7. Barrera spoke about the backlash she received after the exit in an interview with The Independent and referred to it as “the darkest time of the year.”
View this post on Instagram
Despite the controversy, Scream 7, released on February 27 and directed by Kevin Williamson, set a franchise record for the highest opening weekend. As of March 1, Scream 7 has grossed $63.6 million in the United States and Canada and $33.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $96.7 million.
The horror franchise features the return of several longtime cast members, including Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding, Scott Foley, David Arquette and Matthew Lillard.
View this post on Instagram
The series began with Scream in 1996, followed by Scream 2 in 1997, Scream 3 in 2000, Scream 4 in 2011, Scream 5 in 2022, Scream 6 in 2023 and Scream 7 in 2026.
