Sofia Vergara slammed a TV host for making fun of her Columbian accent.
Vergara, 51, recently appeared on the Spanish talk show, El Hormiguero to promote her upcoming project “Griselda,” when the show’s host Pablo Motos seemingly made fun of the way she pronounced the name of her former show, “Modern Family,” during the conversation.
“How do you say ‘Modern Family?’” the host asked her, which confused Sofia as she initially paused. “I say it wrong? Oh, because you speak better English than me, Ah?” the actress then clapped back, as she looked away from Motos looking annoyed by the host’s comment.
Pablo then started laughing uncomfortably to change the topic, but Vergara didn’t let it slide as she squinted her eyes to fire another clapback by asking the host, “How many Emmy nominations do you have in the United States? How many times did they nominate you at the Golden Globes?”
For her role as Gloria, in her former show, Vergara has received four Emmy nominations and four Golden Globe nominations. While, the talk show, “El Hormiguero” has received one Emmy nomination in the non-scripted entertainment category in 2011 but couldn’t win the award.
The journalist appeared to be dumbstruck and embarrassed by Vergara’s savage comebacks, but he seemed to cover the awkwardness of his situation with a smile.
Page Six suggests that this wasn’t the first time that someone made fun of Vergara’s accent, Ellen DeGeneres was accused of doing the same, in 2015, during an episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
A clip of the interview started making rounds on the internet, in 2020, where DeGeneres was seen asking Sofia why was she given such a difficult script to read with her heavy accent in their joint ad campaign for CoverGirl. While the viewers criticized Ellen for being insensitive and mocking the actress’ accent, Sofia disagreed and tweeted in Ellen’s support by writing, “Two comedians having fun with each other to entertain. I was never a victim guys, I was always in on the joke.”
In “Modern Family,” throughout the show, which ran for 11 seasons from 2009-2020, Vergara’s Columbian character would mispronounce English words and phrases, adding funny moments to the plot and making the audience love her character even more. But she also faced backlash for the same as many people thought that she was portraying a stereotype of Latina women.
To which the actress replied, “What’s wrong with being a stereotype? Gloria’s character is inspired by my mom and my aunt. They are both Latin women who grew up in Colombia, like me. They love color, prints and shoes … It upsets me when Latinos complain about Gloria.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity because the gringos have let me in with this strong accent I have. Eight years ago nobody had an accent like this on television,” she further said.
In her forthcoming project with Netflix Sofia will be seen portraying another Columbian character which is a real-life drug lord Griselda Blanco. The show will be premiering on the platform on January 25.
