Julianna Marguiles receives backlash for comments on Black and queer people supporting Palestine

Speaking on a podcast, Marguiles uses her role as a lesbian on "The Morning Show" to shield her questionable views

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published November 30, 2023 5:05PM (EST)

Julianna Margulies at the Albie Awards hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice held at The New York Public Library on September 29, 2022 in New York City.  (Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Julianna Margulies at the Albie Awards hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice held at The New York Public Library on September 29, 2022 in New York City. (Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)

Julianna Margulies is the latest celebrity to find themselves in the hot seat after comments made during a recent appearance on "The Back Room with Andy Ostroy" podcast regarding Black and queer people supporting Palestine are being interpreted as hateful and bigoted.

Weaved into her comments — in which she says that Black and gay people are "lower than Jews," and that people who use they/them pronouns would be decapitated in an Islamic country and have their heads used in place of soccer balls — she mistakes her role as a lesbian on "The Morning Show" as a shield of authority in the matter, which the internet is having a big problem with, compounded by many of the other misguided comments made on the episode that aired on November 20.

"It takes skills to pack anti-Blackness, Islamophobia and transphobia so deftly into 90 seconds. Julianna Margulies take a bow," says writer Monisha Rajesh on X (formerly Twitter), sharing a clip of the actress speaking.

"It's more unhinged than anything Amy Schumer or Sarah Silverman have said," writes Samah Fadil, a Black Palestinian writer. "Here Julianna Margulies says the Black community is uneducated (she wants to say ignorant soooo bad). Then she tells them to get the f**k out of America cuz they weren't here first either."


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