Jackie Oshry, an influencer with 225k followers, is facing a backlash following comments about movie theatre shootings.
Jackie runs the podcast The Morning Toast with her sister, Claudia Oshry Soffer. Her sister has accrued three million followers on her 'Girl With No Job' Instagram account.
On Tuesday’s episode of their podcast, the two were discussing movies when Claudia said she feels “uneasy being in movie theaters these days” - she was speaking in relation to the 2012 Colorado movie theatre shooting, which claimed the lives of 12 people and injured another 70.
Jackie responded, “Ever since the elevation of the movie theater experience, with iPic and some of the nicer movie theaters, I feel like, no offense — this is awful — if you’re going to shoot up a movie theater, it’s not going to be the most expensive one.” iPic is an upscale movie chain with locations in New York, where the sisters are based.
In the video, Claudia then adds how much more comfortable she felt when watching a movie in a theater in Vancouver.
Claudia said, “Me and Margo [their younger sister] went to the movies and I was honestly feeling so relaxed, and you know when you’re in a movie theater in America, you’re always looking over your shoulder.”
She continued, “I haven’t felt so at ease in a movie theater in so long and then I realized, 'Oh we crossed the border, things are different in Vancouver.' It was so relaxing, it was so normal, it was just like a day at the movies.”
Despite facing backlash online, Jackie announced on Wednesday’s episode of The Morning Toast that she felt no need to apologize.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I said because people are making it so much more than it is and I don’t want to condone doing that. People are inferring from what I said, so many other awful classist things. I didn’t mean anything more or less than what I said. So I’m not going to apologize and endorse what you guys are saying I meant,” Jackie said.
The sisters aren’t strangers to controversy. In the past, they have been vocal about their support of Trump on their Twitter accounts.
Their mother, Pamela Geller, is an avid Trump supporter, and their own social media accounts show that they share similar political views.
