Matthew Lillard has a confession about Scream 7, and it isn't about the plot.

At a Q&A following a 30th anniversary screening of the original 1996 Scream this week, the actor who played Stu Macher said he now regrets agreeing to reprise the role after Melissa Barrera was dropped from the franchise in late 2023. Barrera, who played Sam Carpenter in the previous two films, was fired by producer Spyglass Media Group over social media posts in which she criticised Israel's conduct in Gaza and used the words "genocide and ethnic cleansing." Spyglass said at the time it had "zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form," a line the company has stuck to since.

Lillard wasn't asked directly about Scream 7. A fan at the screening asked him about the risk of speaking out publicly as an actor, and he went there anyway.

"Melissa Barrera, who's a beautiful actor, was fired for what she said after the whole Palestinian — what started happening in Israel," Lillard said, according to footage cited by Variety and TheWrap. "It's really f, ing bulls–t and really hard and she's on the right side of history."

He didn't stop there. "When that happened to Melissa, the whole world didn't pipe up. But she was a year early on what the f–k's going on. But the whole world should have popped up and said, 'She's right.' And they didn't. And that's brutal."

Then he turned it on himself.

"I went back to do Scream, and I got called out," he said. "I feel bad about that. I feel ashamed about that. Because in that moment I was so excited to go back, I didn't really think about Melissa and that journey. I didn't say no. I'm embarrassed, that's the truth... I blew that. I'm on the wrong side of history for that. I still like being in the movie, but it may not have been the best idea."

Barrera's exit set off a chain reaction behind the camera. Director Christopher Landon left the project soon after, and Jenna Ortega, who'd played Tara Carpenter across two films, exited too. Spyglass ended up rebuilding the script around Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott, the character who's anchored the franchise since Wes Craven's original.

Whatever the turmoil, it didn't hurt at the box office. Scream 7 opened in February and became the highest-grossing film in the series, pulling in $214 million worldwide, per Variety's reporting. Protesters had gathered outside its Los Angeles premiere calling for a boycott over Barrera's firing, but the numbers suggest that pressure never really translated to ticket sales.

Spyglass has already confirmed Scream 8 is moving forward. Whether Lillard's comments this week change how the studio talks about the Barrera fallout going into that next film remains to be seen.