Canadian actor Evangeline Lilly is the latest celebrity to draw flak for her views against COVID-19 vaccine mandates as she said that she attended a protest “to support bodily sovereignty”.
The “Ant-Man and the Wasp” star, 42, took to Instagram on Thursday to share images from the protest outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., including shots of signs that read “Vaxxed Democrat for Medical Freedom,” “Nurses for Vaxx Choice” and “Feds for Medical Freedom” along with a quote from American entrepreneur Naval Ravikant that reads “All tyranny begins with the desire to coerce others for the greater good.”
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“I believe nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will, under threat of violent attack, arrest or detention without trial, loss of employment, homelessness, starvation, loss of education, alienation from loved ones, excommunication from society…under any threat whatsoever,” Evangeline Lilly wrote in a post she shared on Instagram.
“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,” she added.
Lilly is the second Marvel actress to have expressed reservations against vaccines. In 2020, Black Panther star Letitia Wright shared an anti-vax video on social media, then temporarily deactivated her Twitter and Instagram accounts before apologizing and saying she didn’t mean to hurt anyone.
The actress had made headlines over the same issue when she refused to practice social distance and quarantine. In March 2020, she said, “Some people value their lives over freedom, some people value freedom over their lives. We all make choices.” The actress faced backlash and eventually apologized.
Lilly is best known for playing the role of Hope van Dyne or Wasp in Ant-Man and Avengers movies, Tauriel in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy and Kate Austen in ABC’s drama series “Lost”. She will be next seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which has wrapped shoot and will be seen in theaters on July 28, 2023.
