Actress Ellen Page went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Thursday night and attacked Vice President Mike Pence, seemingly blaming him for the apparent attack on Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who is gay, saying, “connect the dots.”
Page said, “We have a media that’s saying it’s a debate whether or not what just happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It’s absurd. It isn’t a debate.”
Colbert interjected, “I agree.”
Page continued, “Sorry, I’m like, I’m really fired up tonight.”
Colbert encouraged, “You have to be fired up.”
Page then went on her rant:
It feels impossible to not feel this way now with the president and Vice President Mike Pence, who wishes I couldn’t be married. Let’s be clear. The vice president of America wishes I didn’t have the love with my wife. He wanted to ban that in Indiana. He believes in conversion therapy. He has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the governor of Indiana, and I think the thing we need to know and I hope my show Gaycation did this in terms of connecting the dots in terms of what happened the other day to Jussie, I don’t know him personally, I send all of my love. Connect the dots. This is what happens. If you are in a position of power and you hate people and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going to happen?
Kids are going to be abused and they’re going to kill themselves, and people are going to be beaten on the street. I have traveled the world and I have met the most marginalized people you could meet. I am lucky to have this time and the privilege to say this. This needs to f***ing stop.
As Mediate reports, “The attack on Smollett, which he reported as being attacked by two men in masks, beaten, had a rope tied around his neck, and doused with bleach at 2:00 A.M. in Chicago, is still under investigation by police. The Chicago police so far only have video footage of two people who were walking nearby at the time of the incident. No video of the attack has been found so far, according to the Chicago Tribune.”
Earlier in the interview, Page criticized Hollywood for not being progressive enough, saying, “There’s clear evidence that it has changed, that there is some progress, that there is some more representation, but honestly, I really think we need to hurry up. It’s not cutting it. Hollywood, and the film industry in particular, in particular is just so binary, and it is so, I find, can be so narrow in its ideas of who can tell stories and who can be in the stories, and I hope it continues to change. And like I say, clearly there are changes, and there’s extraordinary people that are leading the way in doing that, But I hope it continues to go quicker because there’s certain things I’m sick and tired of, yeah.”
Video below: