'The Mandalorian' star Gina Carano addresses her controversial social-media presence: 'I bring the fire out in people'

• The "Mandalorian" star Gina Carano has spoken publicly about her controversial social-media presence, giving an interview with the "Star Wars" YouTuber Drunk3PO.
• "If my presence bothers you, OK, but also a lot of people are not bothered by my Twitter presence or my social-media presence," she said. "So I focus more on those people. I bring the fire out in people. I'm not sure why."
• Carano's past tweets about US voter fraud and mask-wearing caused "Star Wars" fans to start the hashtag #FireGinaCarano last year.

The "Mandalorian" star Gina Carano addressed her controversial social-media presence, which had "Star Wars" fans calling for her removal, in a new interview.

"I'm going to stick around, and if my presence bothers you, OK, but also a lot of people are not bothered by my Twitter presence or my social-media presence," she told the "StarWars" YouTuber Drunk 3PO. "So I focus more on those people. I bring the fire out in people. I'm not sure why."

Carano, the former MMA star who is now best known for playing Cara Dune in the Disney Plus series "The Mandalorian," has drawn criticism for her social-media posts that criticized mask-wearing - which experts see as a crucial way of preventing COVID-19 infections - and that spread spurious claims of voter fraud in the 2020 US election. Carano has also asked her followers to join her on Parler, a social-media app touted by Republican politicians and right-wing pundits that brands itself as a "free speech" platform and has "no fact checkers."

Over the weekend, Apple joined Google in barring Parler from its app store for failing to remove content that promoted violence, The New York Times reported.

Carano's polarizing tweets led to the hashtag #FireGinaCarano, which gained traction when her character (Dune) made her first appearance in the second season of "The Mandalorian." Many fans stood behind her, however, and countered with the #StandWithGinaCarano hashtag.

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A former Rebel shock trooper who is now marshal of the New Republic, the Cara Dune character on "The Mandalorian" is a major fixture on the show. Mando often teams with her, including on the show's season-two finale when they board Moff Gideon's ship to save Grogu.

And it's possible Carano will dive deeper into the "Star Wars" canon with the coming Disney Plus series "Rangers of the New Republic."

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