There was a wealth of horrible, offensive and thought-provoking commentary on Sunday night’s BAFTA controversy, where Tourette’s awareness advocate John Davidson screamed the n-word at Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo and Hannah Beachler. One of the most thought-provoking arguments I saw is that the BBC and BAFTA aired the n-word without edits because they simply don’t have a problem with it. Like, it’s that simple. They thought it was perfectly fine for someone to scream the n-word at Black artists on stage at the BAFTAs. While Davidson apparently did not apologize to Jordan, Lindo or Beachler personally, he did make a statement 24 hours after the BAFTAs. There’s a huge amount of controversy over BAFTA’s lack of care or concern for the Black artists who had to endure hearing racist slurs at a work event, and BAFTA also took its sweet time releasing a statement and apology too. Additionally, the BBC aired Davidson’s slur at MBJ and Delroy Lindo during their two-hour-delay broadcast. In BAFTA’s statement, they made it sound like they had no idea that this moment would become such a huge controversy. But according to Deadline’s new exclusive, Warner Bros – the studio which released Sinners and is funding Sinners’ awards campaign – immediately brought this issue to BAFTA.
Warner Bros. raised immediate concerns about the involuntary racial slur directed at the stars of Sinners during the BAFTA Film Awards, requesting that the incident be removed from the BBC broadcast, Deadline can reveal.
A well-placed source told Deadline that Warner Bros. executives made a complaint to BAFTA within minutes of Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson‘s N-word verbal tic. This person said the studio received assurances that its concerns would be passed to the BBC and producer Penny Lane TV during the recording of the ceremony, which was broadcast on a two-hour time delay.
The source’s account raises questions about the version of events given by the BBC and Penny Lane, which was that producers in the gallery were not aware of what had been said until it was too late, meaning that the outburst directed at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo was screened on BBC One.
BAFTA insiders acknowledged that conversations with Warner Bros. took place. Deadline asked BAFTA whether Warner Bros.’ concerns were relayed to the BBC and Penny Lane, but the organization declined to comment. On Monday, BAFTA apologized for the “very offensive language” during the event and said it took “full responsibility for putting our guests in a very difficult situation.” BAFTA’s statement did not, however, address why the racial slur wasn’t excised from the BBC broadcast.
Penny Lane declined to comment, but Deadline understands that the production company stands by its position that the crew in the gallery did not hear Davidson’s outburst. The BBC declined to comment, but sources at the broadcaster have supported Penny Lane’s account. Warner Bros. declined to comment.
Warner Bros. is said to be skeptical of the BBC and Penny Lane’s version of events and considers the explanation inadequate, given the gravity of the concerns it raised on the night. Even setting aside Warner’s complaint, sources in the Royal Festival Hall auditorium said Davidson’s interruption was clearly audible in the room, with sources questioning why an urgent message was not sent to the gallery.
“For their story to be true, it means that nobody in the room mentioned it to the BBC or BAFTA in the two hours between the incident and it airing. That’s just not possible,” a senior independent producer told Deadline.
Warner Bros. is understood to have been in contact with BAFTA repeatedly during the evening, making the organization aware of other instances involving Davidson, including unintentional comments made to Sinners‘ production designer Hannah Beachler. A source told Deadline that Warner Bros.’ representations continued after the awards, with executives confronting BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip and chair Sara Putt at the post-show dinner.
The Hollywood studio resumed contact with BAFTA on Monday morning, as the arts charity was drafting a statement, which was eventually released at around 6PM local time. Warner Bros. is also said to have sought talks with the BBC amid alarm that the N-word incident remained on iPlayer, but sources said a meeting did not materialize. The BBC removed the BAFTA Film Awards from iPlayer at around 11.30AM on Monday, nearly 15 hours after it was first broadcast. The ceremony remained unavailable to view on Tuesday morning as the BBC made edits to the tape.
The fact that Warner Bros executives immediately and repeatedly went to BAFTA organizers about the issue also means that BAFTA producers knew that Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo needed to be spoken to, and BAFTA producers refused to do it. Lindo and Jordan were never spoken to directly that night by anyone from BAFTA, there was no personal apology from BAFTA producers, no acknowledgement that they were just racially abused in front of their colleagues. The only thing that happened was that Alan Cumming was sent out to apologize “IF” people were offended. The fact that Warner Bros sources are calling out these Brits as liars and racists is pretty amazing. And accurate.
Note by CB: E! didn’t censor the n-word in their rebroadcast either, and they had all that extra time and warning.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, screencap courtesy of ABC News.
-
- Guests attend the EE BAFTA Film Nominees Party at the National Gallery,Image: 1077221003, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Delroy Lindo, Credit line: Phil Lewis/Wenn/Avalon
-
- Michael B. Jordan at the 2026 EE BAFTA Film Awards, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK, 22 February 2026.,Image: 1077390737, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
-
- Michael B. Jordan at the 2026 EE BAFTA Film Awards, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK, 22 February 2026.,Image: 1077391336, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
-
- Dottie Achenbach and John Davidson attends the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2026 at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank in London, England, UK on Sunday 22 February, 2026.,Image: 1077651864, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/Retna/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
-
- 79th British Academy Film Awards, at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre Featuring: Alan Cumming Where: London, United Kingdom When: 22 Feb 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Horrible situation. I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised by how seriously the Warner Bros. executives took these incidents and how much they complained. It sounds like the Warner Bros. executives were very upset and offended themselves, which I am glad to see. I knew that they had raised it being edited out, but didn’t know that that they were so upset they confronted the BAFTA CEO at the after-show dinner. Good job, Warner Bros executives, whoever you are!
Of course the BBC and BAFTA did nothing immediately because they are racist and saw nothing wrong with the word being yelled. As for Davidson I believe and it’s my opinion that he is racist too. The “apologies” that came late were insincere at best and not apologies at worst!!!
Not only that, but also the free publicity for their event…people will talk.
Maybe I am too cynical.
I agree. The award winners should return their awards and black talent should announce that they will not attend next year’s award or in further years unless BFFTA admits publicly that they were not focused on protecting talent, which the awards are ment to salute. And their president should apologize for not speaking up right after the incident. Of course that would have needed Scooter to be able to think on his feet and demonstrate on the spot that he has morals and leadership skills. Obviously he does not.
JFC. What is wrong with these people? Well, I guess we know the answer. And you know what, the BAFTAs were really patting themselves on the back for being more diverse than in years past. They’re like we gave POC awards this time so what more do you want. Unbelievable.
You know what. I am glad WB reps got in their faces immediately. Sometimes Black people get crapped on like I saw yesterday in the immediate aftermath, but glad that they had the SInners crew back. Also, I had someone ask the question of did he just seem to be doing it to that cast since he didn’t say anything to the One Battle After Another cast/crew and I said that if he had, I think Sean Penn would have not been as kind about it.
Reading between the lines a bit, it sounds like the WB execs became increasingly angry with BAFTA throughout the event as they realized that no one was taking this seriously. If they were repeatedly complaining, I bet it’s because they could sense they were getting blown off. For them to confronted the CEO and Pres. at the dinner is really good to see, but clearly they did that (after raising complaints and concerns for the ENTIRE show) because they still felt like no one was taking them seriously. I can’t imagine how frustrating and enraging that must be. It’s horrible enough to see someone be racially abused, but then to discover that the people around you don’t even care like wtf. That would be so shocking in itself on top of the actual incident. You know they were FING pissed when they realized the iPlayer was still unedited *the next day*. I wish we could here how they phrased their “complaints” about that lol
Dude that said this has Tourettes Syndrome, and it’s actually the subject of the film. It wasn’t like he was “Yo xxxxxx”. I think this is the reason for the non-immediate apology and the non-cut.
I’m not saying this was the right choice, but there’s a massive difference between someone having an illness that means that they have no control over what they say, and someone flinging out any kind of slur.
There seems to be this inaccurate thought process that people with disabilities also cannot be racist (or indoctrinated into expressing racist beliefs), and that’s all I really have to say on that. (I didn’t mean to specifically reply to your comment, I must have clicked on the wrong comment place)
I’ve never understood that viewpoint about any marginalized group. Being part of a minority group or marginalized group doesn’t give you a vaccine against bigotry. You can be an islamophobic gay person, you can be a homophobic black person, and you could be a racist disabled person.
This again tries to shift the focus of the actual point. No one is saying that this man needs to be demonized for having Tourette’s and having involuntary tics. They’re saying that his reaction to how his disability manifested itself was hurtful and he centered himself in the discomfort. He absolutely deserves to get called out for that.
The people that made the movie and led the press tour for it and everything else have every responsibility to explain all that and there is absolutely no reason not to acknowledge the shock and discomfort it causes people and for people hearing that word thrown at Black professionals and to the people it was directed at and apologize for they. Two things can be true at once.
Disagree as to why the word wasn’t cut out. Bc, let’s be real, if he’d called out anything about Andrew being a pedophile, the BBC would have muted it out, trust.
This has nothing to do with the offensive words, intentional or not. It has to do with the BAFTAs handling of it once the words were uttered. It looked like they were supporting disability rights over anti racism. It was a false choice. It simply needed explaining and apologizing on behalf of the room for putting the award winners in a terrible, awkward and humiliating position.
I think a simple statement that says ” please note that this person has not control over his body and we do not share this message.
We are deeply sorry” or something similar would have been more than welcome.
That doesn’t explain why no one from the event offered support to the people having slurs thrown at them or intervened to ensure it.did not reoccur .
They where at work and under no circumstances should be expected to have hate speech shouted at them .
It is a another form of racism; they are annoyed that their ever so open-minded embrace of Davidson and the movie based on his life, for which they were expected accolades and backslaps, has now been what they see as “overshadowed” by race. It goes back to what many here have said about Black people expected to make others feel comfortable at the expense of themselves.
They wanted to look good and tell a feel good story and they didn’t protect Lindo and Jordan or Davidson in the process. It seems attendees were told he might make noise. I’d imagine that the Americans attending would have had no idea that actual slurs might be shouted.
I also read that after he said “fuck the queen” to the Queen, he apologized immediately. Because punching up is unforgivable in British society, I guess.
“Penny Lane declined to comment, but Deadline understands that the production company stands by its position that the crew in the gallery did not hear Davidson’s outburst”
Ummm this doesn’t dispute the fact that they were informed. If I don’t see someone smack someone, but someone comes and tells me it just happened, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t informed. So they’re saying in that moment because they didn’t hear it happen, when it was reported to them, the producer didn’t say hold on let’s review the tape and see what happened so we can get on top of this right away. Because that would be a hugely offensive thing for us to let go out on air? They’re basically saying that they’re incompetent in their job and that is my generous interpretation.
Imo, heads should roll. Firings at the bbc, Penny Lane and the BAftas. They’re standing by their position? GTFOH. Nah, we just heard that WB was telling them from the start to take the word out. They CHOSE not to.
I love the WB not only immediately stood up to BAFTA, but are still exposing them for what and who they truly are. BAFTA wasn’t expecting this backlash so I hope it continues. Its shameful and disgusting that no one has apologized to Mr. Lindo and Mr. Jordan. All I will say about Davidson is that he needs to apologize as loudly as he hurled that racial slur. His disability doesn’t exempt him from the consequences of his involuntary actions/hate speech. He can’t control his verbal tics, but he can control his actions and reactions afterwards.
I usually watch the BAFTAS but didn’t this year because I had a busy day of sports and television to watch (Olympics, Celtics, Masterpiece Theater, Knight of 7 Kingdoms) but I was following along somebody who was live-blogging from the ceremony. That person didn’t say what was shouted but each update from the beginning of the show included mention of unexplained outbursts that were distracting and upsetting audience members. There is no way the showrunners were not aware.
It’s a PR disaster in multiple ways, and WB is rightfully salty. I suspect that the BAFTA people thought including Davidson was a bold move and that any grown-up can hear f-words and just get over it, and that it probably didn’t occur to them that the n-word was a possibility until far too late. So that’s mistake one.
Mistake two: Davidson may not be able to control his outbursts, but he has the agency to leave when he realized he was becoming problematic. He did it three times before leaving, and it’s not clear if he left of his own accord or at someone else’s suggestion. His statement isn’t really an apology, either. They should have had a plan from the get-go acknowledging that this was a live event, and that realistically, he could become too disruptive. A reasonable person would agree. And speaking of live events, have they not heard of the five-second delay?
Mistake 3: Centering the whole thing on Davidson is racist as well; everyone’s rights should count, not just his. All those gifted artists had to stand there on what should have been one of the proudest nights of their lives, and instead they had to listen to that word being screamed at them with no real compassion for them from the organizers or the audience at the time, lame explanations after, and no meaningful apologies. It’s absolutely shameful.
Take no prisoners, Warner Brothers!
The fact of the matter is, it never should have been broadcast and that clown who apologized had a smirk on his face the whole time.
Why did BAFTA take so long to make a statement? There needs to be a major reckoning in the UK where race is concerned. There is a reluctance to talk about or acknowledge racism in that country.