THE FUSE

At the Baftas, a racial slur wasn’t edited from a delayed broadcast, sparking backlash. Tourette’s is real, but critics say the BBC still had an editorial responsibility to act.

What was meant to be a glitzy night on Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards (Baftas) quickly spiralled into controversy when Tourette’s Syndrome activist John Davidson hurled the N-word at Sinners, stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, both black.

But the real storm that followed was about what the BBC chose not to do.

The Baftas are not broadcast live. There is a delay. Which means someone, somewhere, has an edit button.

The BBC didn’t edit out the slur in the delayed broadcast, even though they reportedly knew about Davidson’s participation in the show and had been preparing for it. But other inappropriate language, including homophobic slurs, was caught and removed before the Baftas aired. The BBC also removed part of filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr’s speech in which he said: “Free Palestine”.

Deadline previously reported the BBC would be “monitoring the Baftas closely for politically charged speeches” after last year’s Glastonbury Festival, when punk rap duo Bob Vylan chanted “Death to the IDF!” Seems like a selective kind of monitoring. 🤐

Host Alan Cumming too, caught flack, for ending the evening by saying: “We apologise if you are offended tonight.” This didn’t land with the Sinners’ production designer, Hannah Beachler. “What made the situation worse was the throwaway apology of ‘if you were offended’ at the end of the show,” she wrote on X.

Davidson later told Variety “I want people to understand that my tics have absolutely nothing to do with what I think, feel, or believe.” He lives with Tourette’s syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by involuntary movements and sounds known as tics. In some cases – about 10% to 30% – people experience coprolalia: involuntary swearing or uttering taboo words. It is rare – and often misunderstood. Actor Jamie Foxx commented on Instagram: “Nah, he meant that shit.” The comment has since been deleted.

Nuance matters… But so does context.

Critics argue the BBC failed on three fronts:

🔸 Not editing out the slur in a pre-recorded broadcast

🔸 Offering what many people saw as a non-apology. The Wire actor Wendell Pierce wrote on X it was infuriating that the first reaction “wasn’t full-throated apologies to Lindo and Jordan. The insult to them takes priority. It doesn’t matter the reasoning for the racist slur.”

🔸 Being inconsistent about what counts as “offensive” enough to cut

Outgoing BBC director-general, Tim Davie, has instructed the corporation’s complaints unit to investigate what the broadcaster is now calling a “serious mistake”, a spokesperson said.

Our take? You can hold two truths at once: Tourette’s is real and involuntary. And broadcasters have editorial responsibility.