Guy Pearce’s wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories

If you thought that starring in a film inspired by the Holocaust would at least make someone cautious about amplifying wildly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, then you would be sorely mistaken. Step forward Australian actor Guy Pearce, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Brutalist, about a Jewish-Hungarian Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States.

Over recent months, Pearce has broadcast his support for a range of disturbing ideas. He has shared material on social media asserting that the world’s three biggest pornography companies are owned by Jews, that Jews feel a religious duty to murder Christians, and that ‘Jewish Zionists’ are behind the gambling and prostitution in Las Vegas. Pearce also suggested that Israel was responsible for both the 9/11 terror attacks and the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, adding that he has ‘never been so disgusted by a group of people in my life’ as he has been ‘by Israelis’.

Pearce has since apologised for the posts. Last week, he told Jewish News: ‘It has been brought to my attention that, in my support for Palestine, I have inadvertently re-posted articles, and / or statements, that have contained misinformation and falsehoods.’

This must surely rank as one of the least sincere apologies of the year. Short of being blindfolded, how could any thinking person ‘inadvertently’ share so many obviously hateful and conspiratorial posts? Nor is it clear how any of this can be excused as simply showing ‘support for Palestine’.

The material Pearce has shared online is so extreme that some of it is worth quoting in full. You almost wouldn’t believe it otherwise. One post said:

‘Remember when Zionists tell you Islam will destroy America… The top three pornography companies are owned by Jewish people… The top one being owned by a rabbi… While several major Las Vegas hotels that have caused gambling addictions, debt and prostitution were created and owned by Jewish Zionists.’

It gets worse. In another post, Pearce shared a monologue by Nick Fuentes, an American far-right white nationalist, in which he claims that ‘there’s an Israeli Jewish historian named Israel Shahak, he is considered the Thomas Aquinas of Judaism, the greatest scholar of Jewish law… He said that every Jew should pray for the death of every Christian every day.’ Pearce added his own caption: ‘We are ruled by monsters.’

Many of Pearce’s most toxic rants were about Israel. Whichever came first, his jaundiced view of the Jewish State or his jaundiced view of Jews, hardly matters at this point. On the anniversary of 9/11, Pearce shared a post claiming that there are ‘too many unanswered questions’ about al-Qaeda’s 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre. He posted another video that quotes an interview with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the accompanying text:

‘Here’s what 9/11 really was. Most will call the terrorists Arabs. But this isn’t even close to the truth. Because they were the Israelis!’

According to Pearce, the supposed Jewish / Israeli plot to topple the Twin Towers was just the beginning. He also alleged that Israel was responsible for the murder of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot while speaking at a university in Utah in September. Pearce shared a post that claimed Netanyahu ‘offered Charlie Kirk more than $150million in cash to adopt a more supportive stance on Israel, but Kirk refused the offer so as not to be associated with the genocide in Gaza’. Pearce then added his own caption: ‘Gosh, what a surprise.’

This can hardly be brushed off as a slip of the tongue. Pearce is openly endorsing opinions that someone with even the most cursory knowledge of the 20th century ought to find repugnant. As an actor who has just starred in a film about a Holocaust survivor, he presumably has some knowledge of what that was and how it came about. Claiming that Jews are sexually debased and seek to kill Christians is, to borrow a favourite phrase of the millennial left, ‘literally’ fascism.

Strangely, Pearce’s views have attracted barely a murmur of interest in the notoriously woke world of culture. Yet replace ‘Jew’ with ‘Muslim’ or ‘Hindu’ in the posts he approvingly reshared, and ask yourself what the reaction would be in Hollywood. At best, he would be persona non grata, resigned to minor roles, probably relegated to some waning sitcom like Neighbours, where he started his career. At worst, he would never work again.

Indeed, perhaps the most disturbing thing about Guy Pearce’s twitterings is the collective silence and indifference. If views like those aren’t enough to cause shock and outrage, then we really are in a very dark place.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.