Celebrities including Billie Eilish, director Ava DuVernay, Poor Things star Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef and many more showed up to the red carpet for the 96th Academy Awards wearing red pins in support of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as a protest delayed stars’ arrivals.
“We’re all calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for the safety of everyone involved. We really want lasting justice and peace for the Palestinian people,” Youssef said during a red carpet interview. “We really just want to say, ‘let’s just stop killing children.’ There’s so much there to process and it feels like the easiest way to have the conversations that people want to have is when they’re isn’t an active bombing campaign happening.”
The pins are part of an effort launched by Artists4Ceasefire, a group of individuals in the entertainment industry who penned an open letter to Joe Biden to demand a ceasefire.