For the second time since the pandemic’s start, Evangeline Lilly has found herself mired in controversy. The Lost star said she attended an anti-vaccine-mandate protest in D.C. last weekend “to support bodily sovereignty.” Lilly posted several black-and-white photos from the demonstration on Instagram Thursday, including ones of protesters with signs that read “Vaxxed Democrat for Medical Freedom” and “Nurses for Vaxx-Choice.”
According to The Washington Post, she appears to have been at the same rally where anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared COVID vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. (After widespread denouncements, including from the Auschwitz Memorial and his own wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines, Kennedy apologized.) It’s unclear if Lilly was present during Kennedy’s remarks. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Lilly for comment.)
Lilly, who has not shared her own vaccination status, wrote that she believes “nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will,” under threats including “violent attack,” “arrest or detention without trial,” “homelessness,” “starvation,” and “excommunication from society,” among others. She continued, “This is not the way. This is not safe. This is not healthy. This is not love. I understand the world is in fear, but I don’t believe that answering fear with force will fix our problems. I was pro choice before COVID and I am still pro choice today.” (Contrary to her post, the CDC recommends that all eligible people receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but there is no current national requirement to do so.)
This isn’t the first time Lilly has shared misleading information about the pandemic. Back in March 2020, she apologized after writing on Instagram that her family was going about life “#businessasusual” without quarantining, despite living with her father, who she said was battling stage IV leukemia. In comments on the original post, Lilly also compared coronavirus to “a respiratory flu” and likened isolation rules to “Marshall Law [sic].”
Lilly, who stars as the Wasp in Marvel’s Ant-Man franchise, is the second Marvel-affiliated star to publicly voice vaccine resistance. In December 2020, Letitia Wright courted controversy by sharing a conspiracy theory video on Twitter that doubted the safety of potential COVID-19 vaccines. Last October, Wright denied the allegation that she had expressed anti-vax sentiments on the set of Black Panther 2, which was published in a Hollywood Reporter piece; she called the claim “completely untrue.” Earlier this month, she returned to the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever after a five-month hiatus recovering from a shoulder fracture sustained while performing a stunt.
Disney and Marvel have yet to address Wright’s and Lilly’s controversies as the release dates for their respective sequels loom. Wright’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will debut in November, while Lilly’s movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is slated for theaters in July 2023.
At least one other Marvel star has seemingly referenced Lilly’s controversy. Simu Liu, star of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, tweeted his own support for the vaccine early Friday. “I lost my grandparents to COVID last year. They were still waiting for their vaccines,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m fortunate to have been double-vaccinated and boosted when I got COVID 2 weeks ago. Felt like a cold. The media needs to stop spotlighting opinions that are not rooted in facts or science.”
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