In a galaxy far, far, away, did Disney lose a wrongful termination lawsuit?
“A jury in Hollywood has ordered Disney and Lucasfilm to pay canceled Mandalorian star Gina Carano $115 million,” read a June 20 Facebook post. “The Mandalorian” is Disney’s “Star Wars” spinoff series. Lucasfilm is the Disney subsidiary that produces officially licensed “Star Wars” shows and movies.
The post also included a picture of Carano, who was fired in 2021 over her social media posts that compared the American political climate with Nazi Germany, Variety reported. The Facebook post links in the comments to an article that repeats the post’s claim.
(Screenshot of Facebook post)
The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)
But this claim originated more than a year ago as satire.
Newsweek debunked a similar claim that Carano was paid $115 million for wrongful termination in January 2023, noting that the story had been shared on a political satire account, “America’s Last Line of Defense.”
The account’s creator, Christopher Blair, has said its posts are satire intended to mock conservatives, The New York Times recently reported.
In February 2024, a year after Newsweek’s article, Carano did sue The Walt Disney Co. for wrongful termination; Disney filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in April. X owner Elon Musk is paying Carano’s legal bills, The New York Times reported.
Although a lawsuit has been filed, the case was still in progress as of June 12, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A publicly available court docket does not show the case was settled or had gone before a jury, as of July 1.
PolitiFact found copious reporting about the lawsuit itself, but none regarding a $115 million dollar payout or a jury trial verdict — either of which would have made headlines.
We rate the claim that a jury “ordered Disney and Lucasfilm to pay” Carano $115 million False.