Sinners in BAFTA Awards
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Delroy Lindo was mid-step when it happened. He and Michael B. Jordan had just walked out to present the Best Visual Effects award at Sunday night's Bafta ceremony, and an audience member shouted the n-word at them. Lindo stopped. Took it in. Then kept walking, because what else do you do on a stage in front of hundreds of people with cameras rolling.

That moment made the BBC broadcast. What did not was a filmmaker saying 'free Palestine.'

Akinola Davies Jr. won the Outstanding British Debut award for My Father's Shadow alongside his co-director and brother Wale Davies. Near the close of his speech, he dedicated the win to migrants, refugees, those living under occupation, under persecution, under dictatorship.

He ended with: 'For Nigeria, for London, the Congo, Sudan, free Palestine.' The BBC cut that part before it reached viewers at home.

The broadcaster's explanation, reported by Deadline, was procedural. A three-hour live event must fit a two-hour broadcast slot. Edits were applied across multiple speeches. All full winner addresses would be available on Bafta's YouTube channel. Fine. That is a real constraint and a defensible one.

Less defensible is the fact that the same broadcaster, with a two-hour pre-recorded delay and full editorial control, let a racial slur go to air.

What the BBC Chose Not to Cut

John Davidson has Tourette's syndrome. He is also the subject of the British biopic I Swear, nominated at Sunday's ceremony, which is how he came to be sitting in the Royal Festival Hall that evening. His attendance was not a surprise. Producers knew he would be there. The BBC knew. The audience was told before the show began that involuntary verbal tics were possible.

Davidson himself had spoken to CNN on the red carpet beforehand, explaining that crowded, high-pressure settings tend to intensify his condition. Nobody was caught off guard.

When Jordan and Lindo took the stage, Davidson shouted the n-word. The room had been prepared for something like this. Host Alan Cumming acknowledged the 'strong and offensive language,' reminded the audience that Tourette syndrome is a disability and tics are involuntary, and offered an apology 'if you are offended tonight.'

The audience inside the hall applauded Davidson. His presence was understood in context. The problem is that the moment was then broadcast nationally on BBC One - and it did not need to be. The ceremony ran on a two-hour delay for precisely this kind of reason. The slur was audible. It was not removed.

It then sat on BBC iPlayer for most of the morning of 23 February before someone finally pulled it down around 11:30 a.m. The stream was replaced with a holding message: 'This episode will be available soon.' In a statement, the BBC apologised: 'Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the BAFTA Film Awards. This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and as explained during the ceremony, it was not intentional. We apologise that this was not edited out prior to broadcast.' No explanation was given for why it was not caught during the delay.

A 'Throw-Away Apology' and the Question Nobody Answered

Hannah Beachler was in that room. The production designer of Sinners - which made Bafta history on Sunday as the most decorated film by a Black director in the awards' history - said she also heard Davidson's involuntary slurs during the ceremony. She was not particularly soothed by what followed. The on-stage apology from Cumming, she told Deadline, was 'throw-away.' An impossible situation, she said, made worse rather than better by how it was handled.

It is worth remembering that the BBC had reportedly gone into this year's ceremony on something of a high alert. After the 2025 Glastonbury controversy, when it broadcast act Bob Vylan chanting 'death to the IDF,' the corporation put measures in place around politically charged content. Speech that could cause offence or controversy was flagged for careful handling.

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