Marvel actress Evangeline Lilly on Thursday shared an Instagram post saying that she was in Washington, D.C., last the weekend to “support bodily sovereignty,” at a controversial anti-vaccination-mandate protest where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke and compared vaccine requirements to the struggles Anne Frank faced in Nazi Germany.
In her Instagram post, Lilly stated that she believes “nobody should ever have to inject their bodies with anything, against the will of their will” or under threat. She then listed items she believed were being used as threats against those refusing to get vaccinated.
“I was pro-choice before COVID and am still pro-choice today,” the “Ant-Man and the Wasp” star wrote in her Instagram caption.
Lilly was also criticised for remarks she made regarding quarantining and limitations to flattening the curve in the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, March 2020. CNN reports that Lilly was also backlash.
Some people value their freedom more than their lives, while others value their freedom more than their lives. We all make our own choices,” Lilly wrote to respond to criticism about an Instagram photo that included the caption, “Just dropped my children off at gymnastics camp. Before entering, they all cleaned their hands. They’re laughing and playing. #businessasusual.”
People reacted negatively to her words, particularly as Lilly pointed out that her family included her immunocompromised father who has stage 4 leukemia.
Lilly later apologised for the comments and posted on Instagram again. She stressed that she never meant to hurt anyone. I believed that I was infusing calm and excitement into the post I posted 10 days ago. Now I see that I was projecting my fears onto a already frightening and traumatizing situation.
Lilly isn’t the only actress to be criticized for her views on vaccines in the Marvel sphere. Letitia Wright, the “Black Panther” actress denied that she had shared anti-vaccine messages while filming a new movie in October. Wright caused controversy in December 2020 when she retweeted a video that seemed to question the safety of COVID-19.
