Bafta Host Alan Cumming Apologises After ‘Trauma-Triggering’ Show

Bafta Film Awards host Alan Cumming has described this year’s ceremony as a “trauma triggering” debacle following a furore that blew up after a Tourette’s campaigner involuntarily shouted a racial slur while two black actors were on stage.

Posting on Instagram Cumming said: “I’m so sorry for all the pain Black people have felt hearing the word echoed around the world. I’m so sorry the Tourettes community has been reminded of the lack of understanding and tolerance that abounds regarding their condition.”

He added: “We were all let down by decisions made to both broadcast slurs and censor free speech.”

The slur was audible when the BBC broadcast the ceremony on a two-hour delay, and the corporation’s executive complaints unit is now investigating.

Cumming wrote: “The only possible good that could come of this is a reminder that words matter, that rushing to judgement about things that we are not fully cognisant is folly, that all trauma should be recognised and honoured.”

He went on to congratulate “all the artists whose work was overshadowed by the night’s events”.

The BBC has apologised several times since the broadcast on 22 February, and the ceremony remains unavailable to watch on iPlayer after the corporation removed it the following day.

In a statement issued on the same day, Bafta said it wanted to acknowledge the “harm this has caused, address what happened and apologise to all”.

Cumming had already apologised to the audience from the stage at the time for the language heard during the ceremony.

The BBC has since said a second racial slur was edited out of the show, and that broadcasting the one aired when Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage was a “serious mistake”.

Davidson, from Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, has said the BBC should have “worked harder to prevent anything that I said” from being broadcast.

Meanwhile, Lindo told Vanity Fair that he and Jordan “did what we had to do” as they carried on presenting the category, but also said he wished “someone from Bafta spoke to us afterward”.