There’s no doubt that the world wouldn’t have managed to survive without the help of the COVID-19 vaccine. And, majority of the scientists would vouch for that as a fact. Almost 99% of the celebrities helped spread the awareness of getting vaccinated and played a big role in mass vaccination campaigns. However, here’re few celebrities took an anti-vax stand and deliberately spread misinformation in public forums.
Last year during the Met Gala, Nicki Minaj opened the anti-vax floodgate by announcing that she’ll not attend the Met Gala sighting the reason that it allowed only vaccinated people. She even raised serious doubts against the vaccine by citing that celebs like Drake got infected even after getting the shot (However, scientists have made it clear several times that COVID infection after the vaccine is expected and never a sign of the vaccine not working). She even alleged that her cousin’s friend became impotent and his testicles got swollen after getting the vaccine shot (Public officials have later proved that this was complete misinformation and she confessed that she’ll get vaccinated before her next tour). However, there’s no news of her getting vaccinated so far.
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Soon after Nicki Minaj sparked the anti-vax speculation, the supermodel Doutzen Kroes posted on Instagram a lengthy caption defending her right to avoid the vaccine shot.
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“I will not be forced to take the shot,” she wrote, declaring that “freedom of speech is a right worth fighting for.” Following the backlash to Kroes’s post, her friend and fellow supermodel Gisele Bündchen hopped on the bandwagon to defend her for “expressing her feelings.”
The American actress,48, said that “We’re Not An Anti-Vaccine Movement, We’re Pro-Safe Vaccine.” She believed that vaccines caused her son to develop autism. Jenny McCarthy is known for her voice in the anti-vaccination movement. She shared her belief about vaccinations causing autism. Her 17-year-old son was diagnosed with autism after receiving the measles vaccination. It is a false myth there is a connection between autism and the measles vaccine. Jenny McCarthy has written many books on the same subject.
Sorry John, but that simply is not true. The parents who are upset are the ones who have vaccine Injured children. The ones who can’t speak, who have daily seizures and who are still in diapers in their 20’s. We are fighting for help. Because who will care for them after we die?
— Jenny McC-Wahlberg (@JennyMcCarthy) August 8, 2018
The Canadian actor Carrey took Twitter as a platform to review vaccines. The actor has frequently opposed thimerosal — which was added to vaccines during the 1930s.
He said, “California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in mandatory [sic] vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped.”
“They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosal [sic] is no risk. Make sense?” Which was followed by:
“I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury. They have taken some of the mercury-laden thimerosal out of vaccines. NOT ALL!”
https://twitter.com/jimcarrey/status/616073415812759553
The most celebrated tattoo artist Kat Von D shared a post (now-deleted on Instagram) with her baby bump. She exposed her “personal approach to pregnancy” and showed her “intention of raising a vegan child without vaccines.” Fans were bothered by her statement and stopped using her makeup line. The American tattoo artist wrote in her IG post that”My husband and I are NOT anti-vaxxers. We are not against vaccines. Just because we have hesitancies and valid concerns about injecting our baby with specific chemicals and toxins does not mean we are anti-anything. As a soon-to-be parent (and especially as a first-time mom), I do feel it my responsibility to have questions and to listen to my motherly instinct to question things and do my research.”
.@KATVONDbeauty said she won't vaccinate her baby — and people are so outraged they're boycotting her beauty line https://t.co/UR64wCbVJa
— Insider (@thisisinsider) June 11, 2018
In 1990, Lisa Bonet appeared on The Phil Donahue Show, where she opened up about vaccines and why she did not vaccinate her daughter, Zoë Kravitz. She tensed about adding “alien microorganisms into our children’s blood.” She also stated that the long-term outcomes might be “trivial, or they could be quite hazardous.”
Lisa Bonet on the dangers and effects of vaccines back in the 90’s. pic.twitter.com/70EGa6Z50t
— W O R L D W I D A 🌎 (@worldwida_) September 1, 2021
The American actress, well-known for her performance in the television series “7th Heaven, talked against California Senate Bill 276. She stated, “How many people have to be hospitalized before people think, ‘This isn’t right.’ I wish the 1 percent would stop spreading disease to the 99 percent.” She even joined lawmakers with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has introduced vaccines as “a holocaust” and declared that “the cure for most measles is Vitamin A.”
Jessica Biel joins vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy to oppose vaccination bill https://t.co/KP4Ox1lMip pic.twitter.com/USKn8Uv2W9
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 13, 2019
After that, she wrote on Instagram to address the backlash. “I am not against vaccinations — I support children getting vaccinations, and I also support families having the right to make educated medical decisions for their children alongside their physicians.”