“Scream” franchise star Hayden Panettiere has spoken out about Melissa Barrera‘s firing from the horror movie collection, calling her controversial exit “very unfair and upsetting.”

Barrera, who performed Sam Carpenter in 2022’s “Scream” and 2023’s “Scream VI,” was fired final November from the upcoming “Scream 7” after her social media posts about Palestine have been deemed antisemitic by Spyglass, the manufacturing banner behind the hit horror franchise.

Spyglass stated in an announcement to Selection on the time: “We have now zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any type, together with false references to genocide, ethnic cleaning, Holocaust distortion or something that flagrantly crosses the road into hate speech.”

“After she [spoke out], then an entire bunch of different actors and other people within the business began to do the identical factor, proper?” Panettiere stated in a latest interview with The Messenger. “It was nearly like she simply did it sooner than everybody else.”

Panettiere, who reprised her function “Scream IV” function as Kirby Reed within the sixth installment, reached out to her co-star Barrera when she realized the information.

“You recognize, lots of people hadn’t actually requested her how she felt,” Panettiere stated, including that Barrera thanked her for checking in.

However Panettiere is “not nervous” about Barrera, saying, “Melissa is such a badass as a human being and as an actress… She was harm by it, however I believe she took it in stride and was very, very gracious about it.”

Following Barrera’s firing, Ortega was additionally confirmed to be leaving the “Scream” franchise, although sources state that Ortega’s exit is because of a scheduling battle with manufacturing on Season 2 of “Wednesday.” In December, director Christopher Landon introduced his departure from “Scream 7,” writing on X/Twitter that “it was a dream job that changed into a nightmare.”