Jenna Ortega Uses Mega Platform of Dior to Praise the People of Palestine
The Dior Beauty event in Paris was designed as a celebration of glamour. Rouge Dior On Stage lipsticks lined the walls, cocktails carried the brand name, and oversized portraits of Jenna Ortega welcomed guests into David Lynch’s Silencio club. But when Ortega stepped in front of the GALA cameras, she shifted the spotlight away from fashion and toward Palestine.
Asked by a reporter who her hero was that evening, Jenna Ortega began softly before looking directly into the lens with conviction: “My mom will always be a hero, but another hero of mine today… I don’t know. I’m quite gravitating towards the people of Palestine. And the way that they speak up, and the way that they’re continuously using their voice, no matter how much the world seems to ignore them. It’s very important, and it’s very commendable, and I would like to lift and raise their voices as well.”
The backdrop of Dior’s Paris celebration
The evening itself was all Dior spectacle. The luxury house turned the club into a “scarlet fantasy straight out of Twin Peaks” to launch its new high-shine lipstick line. Guests, including Jennifer Lawrence and Anna Sawai, joined the celebration, while DJs Isabella Massenet and Chloé Groovy kept the music going late into the night. Jenna Ortega arrived in an oversized white shirtdress paired with a black blazer and tie, complemented by a custom Dior lip shade created for her by Peter Philips, the brand’s Creative and Image Director for Makeup.
Yet Ortega’s choice to use that glittering backdrop to speak directly about Palestine reminded viewers that red carpets are also stages, and silence is never neutral.
The words of Jenna Ortega echo amid Gaza’s devastation
Ortega’s comment comes at a time when the world continues to witness mass death and destruction in Gaza. By October 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reported at least 66,148 people killed, most of them civilians, with children and women making up at least half of the victims. The United Nations has said the conditions amount to genocide, with more than 1.9 million Palestinians forcibly displaced and famine gripping the population. Humanitarian organisations, such as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, have also described the situation as catastrophic.
In this context, Jenna Ortega’s decision to name Palestinians as “heroes” carries weight. It interrupts the fashion cycle with testimony about people who, as she put it, “the world seems to ignore.”
