The post-mortem of what precisely went fallacious on the 2026 BAFTA Movie Awards continues.
By now, the story of Tourette Syndrome activist John Davidson involuntarily utilizing a racial slur when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo took the stage to current an award has develop into essentially the most talked-about occasion of the 2025-2026 award season. Whereas most appear to agree that Davidson couldn’t management his speech in that second and didn’t have racist intent, the British Academy and the BBC broadcast have each been scrutinized for not taking extra steps to forestall such offensive language from being heard on air and by these within the room.
Each organizations have put out statements of apology following the occasions of the present, with BAFTA additionally asserting a “complete evaluation” of its insurance policies.
Now, Davidson himself has weighed in on the subject. In a brand new interview with SelectionDavidson echoed the numerous commentators who’ve instructed that his use of the n-word ought to have been edited out of the printed. Davidson claims that he was advised earlier than the present that any profanity can be excluded, and expressed shock {that a} broadcast companion that has beforehand lined his situation extensively was not higher ready for potential incidents.
“StudioCanal have been working carefully with BAFTA, and BAFTA had made us all conscious that any swearing can be edited out of the printed,” Davidson mentioned. “I’ve made 4 documentaries with the BBC previously, and really feel that they need to have been conscious of what to anticipate from Tourette’s and labored tougher to forestall something that I mentioned — which, in any case, was some 40 rows again from the stage — from being included within the broadcast.”
Whereas Davidson maintained that Tourette Syndrome mustn’t bar anybody from attending award exhibits or different public occasions, he additionally questioned the choice to seat him close to a microphone, which may have amplified his outbursts which may have in any other case gone unnoticed by folks onstage and watching at dwelling.
“As I replicate on the auditorium, I bear in mind there was a microphone simply in entrance of me,” he mentioned. “With hindsight I’ve to query whether or not this was clever, so near the place I used to be seated, realizing I’d tic.”