The BBC has, for the first time in detail, revealed the events that transpired at the 2026 Bafta Film Awards, where a racial slur was shouted from the crowd and allowed to air during the delayed television broadcast of the ceremony on February 22.
In a letter to the UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee released last night, director-general Tim Davie said the slur was shouted twice during the ceremony. The first incident happened while Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage presenting an award. The second followed less than 10 minutes later, as Wunmi Mosaku was accepting the award for best supporting actress. Davie said the edit team heard the second incident and removed it from the delayed broadcast, but did not realise the first had also made it onto the feed. As reports began coming in, he said “no-one in the on-site broadcast truck heard this when they were watching the live feed,” meaning there was “no editorial decision made to leave the language in.” He added that the team “mistakenly believed they had edited out the incident that was being referenced” because they had already removed the second slur.
According to Davie, the BBC “profoundly regrets” what happened and described it as a “genuine mistake, that [they] take, full responsibility for.” He claims the corporation is now looking more closely at why the first incident was missed and why “further action was not taken to edit or remove the programme from iPlayer sooner.” BAFTA has separately said a “comprehensive review” is under way.
Speaking about the immediate aftermath, Lindo told Vanity Fair he wished “someone from Bafta spoke to us afterwards.” He later expanded on that experience during an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Tonya Mosley, saying that when the slur was shouted, he barely had time to process what he had heard before continuing with the presentation. “There was a nanosecond, a nano of a nano of a nanosecond, when I’m thinking: ‘Wait, did I just hear what I thought I heard?’” he said. “But then, and it truly was a nanosecond, one had to read the teleprompter and get on with presenting the award.” Lindo added that he later spoke to Jordan, who he said had a “similar response.” Wunmi Mosaku, whose acceptance speech was interrupted by the second slur, said the broadcast decision left her deeply upset and “tainted” what should have been a celebratory moment.
The person responsible for shouting the slur was John Davidson, a Tourette’s campaigner whose life inspired the film I Swear. After the Baftas, Davidson said that “while he is deeply shameful and apologizes for the pain caused”, the BBC should have “worked harder” to stop any of his words from being broadcast. He also said he shouted around 10 different offensive words during the ceremony because of his tics, but that much of the coverage created the impression that the N-word was the only one.
Reaction online has been deeply split. Many people have been enraged and appalled that a racial slur made it into a delayed national broadcast at all, especially during a moment involving Black actors on stage.
Others have called for empathy toward Davidson because he has a condition such as Tourette’s syndrome with his tics being out of his control. But much of the criticism has also centred on a familiar frustration: that Black people are often expected to absorb the harm, make room for everyone else’s complexity, and move on quietly.
However, the reality is that this is exactly the kind of incident that demands nuance — one that can hold the seriousness and pain of the harm caused and the reality of condition, without flattening either. Ultimately, it is the BBC that bears the most responsibility: this was a delayed national transmission, and the broadcaster was the one with the editorial control, the time, and the duty to make sure the slur never reached viewers at home.
