Susan Sarandon: Bernie Sanders supporters in Hollywood ‘afraid’ to speak up

Susan Sarandon said she knows plenty of Hollywood celebrities who support Democratic presidential candidate Bernard Sanders, but they’re too “afraid” to speak out for fear of backlash.

“You know, there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to who are afraid,” the Oscar-winning actress told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Thursday.

Ms. Sarandon, who endorsed Mr. Sanders for president last summer, lamented that many people “say ’I am definitely supporting him, but I’m afraid to come out’ because either I am woman and I don’t want to get shamed — because that has been a big part of what the response has been — or they say, ’I am just waiting to see what happens.’”

“I understand [celebrities] who say they are waiting because you put yourself out there for [interviews] like this. And people, especially if you’re a woman, are making it very, very difficult,” she said.

Ms. Sarandon argued that Mr. Sanders is the best candidate to beat Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

“If you look at the polls, [Mr. Sanders] is the candidate who’s favored to beat [MR. Trump],” she told THR. “Both Trump and Sanders are attractive to people who want somebody outside of the establishment, who want somebody they feel is authentic and they’re not getting that in other candidates.”

The actress also blamed the media for contributing to Mr. Trump’s success in the GOP primary race.

“The press is responsible for making Trump who he is,” she said. “I don’t know why. Things have just not stuck on him, and I blame a lot of the circus that was created by the press and not treated seriously for allowing him to get as far as he has. We’re just not reporting in-depth, responsible, grownup kind of journalism. So it’s taken people a while to educate themselves. For being such a powerful country, we need to be better informed and more responsible in how we go about choosing candidates. It’s not a reality TV show. No one is going to be voted off this island once it happens.”