A senior BBC executive has apologised to staff for the corporation’s failure to edit a racial slur from Sunday’s Bafta film awards telecast. In a note sent on Tuesday and seen by the Press Association, chief content officer Kate Phillips told staff she was “so sorry that a racial slur was not edited out of our broadcast” and that she understood “how distressing this was”.
Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson could be heard shouting the N-word as Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented the award for special visual effects at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
Phillips echoed previous apologies issued by the BBC on Monday in explaining that host Alan Cumming did address the possibility of involuntary verbal tics during the broadcast, but acknowledged that this didn’t “lessen the impact and upset”.
“The edit team removed another racial slur from the broadcast,” she wrote. “This one was aired in error and we would never have knowingly allowed this to be broadcast.
“We take full responsibility for what happened,” she added, before saying that “when I was made aware it was audible on iPlayer, I asked for it to be taken down”.
The BBC removed the original broadcast from its website around midday on Monday, as backlash mounted.
There is still considerable confusion surrounding the circumstances of the word’s inclusion. The BBC said yesterday that its producers had not heard the N-word while editing the show for its transmission two hours after the live event, with a source telling the Guardian that they were “working from a truck”.
On Tuesday, Sinners studio Warner Bros said it had immediately flagged its concern with Bafta during the ceremony and had been assured the request would be passed on to the BBC and that the racial slur would be removed from the broadcast.
In a letter of apology to members on Tuesday, the Bafta executives said that a “comprehensive review” was now under way. “We recognise this has impacted members in a multitude of ways,” the letter read. “We want to acknowledge the harm this has caused, address what happened and apologise to all.”
Sara Putt, the chair of Bafta, and Jane Millichip, its chief executive, went on to quote some of the lengthy statement that Bafta issued on Monday evening in which they attempted to contextualise the situation and said they took “full responsibility for putting our guests in a very difficult situation”. They also apologised unreservedly to Lindo and Jordan.
Speaking to a Vanity Fair reporter at a Baftas afterparty late on Sunday, Lindo said he wished “someone from Bafta spoke to us afterward”. On Monday night, Davidson said he was “deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning”.
Putt was amongst those presenters and winners who were on stage at moments when Davidson shouted verbal tics. Others included Cumming and the film-makers behind family film winner Boong.
Outrage has grown against the two bodies in the days since the event. On Monday, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch said that the BBC had made a “horrible mistake”, while on Tuesday Labour MP Dawn Butler accused it of “an obvious bias” and a “failure of duty of care”.
Butler also called the broadcast “painful and unforgivable” and said she had written to the outgoing director general Tim Davie to request an “urgent explanation”.
Film-maker Jonte Richardson declared Bafta’s handling of the events “utterly unforgivable” and announced that he was stepping down as a Bafta judge.
“I hope Bafta leadership comprehend the damage they and the BBC have caused,” he wrote, “and take the necessary steps to ensure their production staff are inclusive enough to prevent such an issue in the future.”
Meanwhile, Google has apologised for an AI-generated prompt accompanying a link to an article about the incident, which invited users to “See more on” the N-word.
A Google spokesperson told the Guardian the company was “deeply sorry for this mistake. We’ve removed the offensive notification and are working to prevent this from happening again.”
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