Hollywood celebrities expressed their condolences on social media after news broke that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer on Friday. Ginsburg, a fearless defender of gender equality and women’s rights, chose to remain on the Supreme Court despite her diagnosis.

Ginsburg, who served as a Supreme Court Justice for 27 years, was one of only four women to ever ascend to the highest court in the land. She was portrayed in a film, On the Basis of Sex, which recounted her early years as an advocate of equal rights, in 2018. The justice was also featured in a documentary, RBG, which was directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, that same year.

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West and Cohen, said in a statement, “Like so many Americans, we are crushed by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Even had she not become a Supreme Court Justice, Ginsburg earned a place in history for what she did to win equally for American women. When we asked her several years ago how she wanted she wanted to be remembered, she said with characteristic modesty, ‘Just as someone who did whatever she could, with whatever limited talent she had, to move society along in the direction I would like it to be for my children and grandchildren.'”

Among the Hollywood celebrities who paid tribute to Ginsburg were actresses Mindy Kaling and Kerry Washington. Kalin, tweeted, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the kind of scholar and patriot you get excited about explaining to your kids. The kind of person who you say “who knows, one day you could be HER,” while Washington, wrote, “Her rest is earned. It is our turn to fight.”

Actress Octavia Spencer, tweeted, “My deepest condolences to Justice Ginsberg’s loved ones. The nation mourns this loss quite deeply,” and actor John Leguizamo, wrote, “But we must fight as she fought till the bitter end no matter what we cannot and must not succumb to cynicism.”

Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Ginsburg earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University before starting law school at Harvard. She eventually transferred to Columbia Law School. After a distinguished career as a professor and judge, she was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Source: Variety

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