The Sopranos star Drea de Matteo has long maintained that she’s become an “outcast” in Hollywood due to her political beliefs, but she denies that she’s been “canceled.”
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the actress explained why she walked away from the industry, saying she “never played the celebrity game.”
“You know, a lot of people ask me about getting canceled or getting kicked out of Hollywood or shunned. That never happened to me,” she said. “I wasn’t in there to begin with. I’ve never been a Hollywood player. I’ve done a few acting parts of it on a few TV shows. I’ve done a good job. I even have, you know, some achievement awards and things. But like, I was never really in the industry.”
She continued, “I don’t own fancy purses and shit like that or walk red carpets. I don’t mingle with famous people. I don’t, it’s just not my world. So, for me to walk away from it, not a big deal.”
The actress gained fame for her role as Adriana La Cerva in the critically acclaimed mob drama. La Cerva, who was the girlfriend of Michael Imperioli‘s Christopher Moltisanti, was an audience favorite until she met her tragic end in Season 5.
She continued acting after The Sopranos with roles in Desperate Housewives and Sons of Anarchy. But she has since become a vocal conservative and critic of the left, even going so far as to claim she could be shot for refusing to back President Joe Biden when he was still running for president.
“They’re going to take me out into the woods and shoot me for not endorsing Biden,” she said during an appearance on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime earlier this year, referring to the way her Sopranos character was killed off the show.
She also claimed that “there are a lot of quiet Trump supporters” in Hollywood and wondered “how much these actors got paid to endorse Biden at this point.”
Since leaving Hollywood, de Matteo has also pivoted to running an OnlyFans and her own clothing line. She claimed that she joined the platform after she allegedly lost work because she spoke out against the Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
“I didn’t know this was going to have to be a change of life, you know, all of a sudden that during a time I’m supposed to be relaxing a little bit, that I would have to switch careers and figure new things out because my own industry thinks I’m a savage,” she said at the time.
She added, “I guess you could say I was a bad girl because I did not follow the rules a couple of years ago. So, I don’t want to be at the mercy of mandates or strike or anything like that ever again.”
But de Matteo maintains her OnlyFans account “saved” her during a particularly difficult time in life.
“OnlyFans saved my life, 100 percent. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it really did save us,” she said.