Wunmi Mosaku, known for her role in “Sinners,” has expressed that her BAFTA triumph was marred by a controversy surrounding the use of a racial slur during the awards ceremony. The 39-year-old actress clinched the Best Supporting Actress award recently but revealed that the event was tainted by an incident involving John Davidson, who has Tourette’s syndrome. While her colleagues Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting an award, Davidson inadvertently used a racial slur due to a tic.
Davidson’s life story, depicted in the film “I Swear,” which also received a nomination at the event, was marked by this involuntary outburst. Unfortunately, the offensive remark was not removed from the show’s broadcast, which aired on the BBC two hours later.
In a candid discussion with Glamour Magazine, Wunmi reflected on the incident, saying, “The BAFTA win has been overshadowed. It’s been challenging since the BBC chose to air the segment as it was.”
Despite the controversy, Wunmi emphasized the solidarity she felt from her fellow cast members, stating, “We’ve been supporting each other. I had to go on stage for the next award, and it was comforting to see and hug them afterward.”
Speaking about the incident in her recent interview with Glamour Magazine, Wunmi confessed: ‘Obviously, the BAFTA win, there’s been a shadow. It’s been very difficult since the BBC decided to air what it aired.’
Adding how she felt supported by her cast, she continued: ‘We’ve just held each other. I was [up for] the next award, so I came off the stage and I saw them, and I hugged them.’
Wunmi made it clear that her upset is directed at the BBC, not John, who has since reached out to Jordan and Lindo to apologise.
The BBC said the moment ‘was aired in error’ and claimed its Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) will complete a ‘fast-tracked investigation’ into the incident.
Sinners star Wunmi Mosaku has admitted a ‘shadow’ was cast over her BAFTA win after N-word controversy as she defends Tourette’s sufferer John Davidson and blames the BBC
The actress, 39, confessed: ‘ Obviously, the BAFTA win, there’s been a shadow. It’s been very difficult since the BBC decided to air what it aired’
‘Everyone who was impacted deserved the grace to have it taken out – the care to have it taken out. We found out later that night that it was online.
‘We’d been told that it was a family-friendly show at 7pm and that there was a two-hour delay. So how could it possibly have been left in?’
After the BAFTAs, John said he was ‘deeply mortified’ by his outburst, which he said had been involuntarily triggered by the neurological condition he has suffered from since the age of 12.
Sinners has marked a pinnacle point in Wunmi’s career, with the film dominating awards season and grossing $368 million worldwide.
‘This is such a rare moment, and it’s such a big moment for the film: 16 nominations!’ she said: ‘This is the moment that I have worked 20 years towards.’
And Wunmi was thrilled when her co-star Michael B. Jordan was crowned Best Actor at The Actor Awards.
‘Oh, I forgot I was pregnant, and jumped and jumped and jumped! That gave myself a few issues.’
Wunmi previously opened up about how her BAFTA-winning celebrations were ‘tainted’ by the racial slur that occurred and vowed she ‘won’t forgive’ the BBC for keeping it in the broadcast.
Speaking at the Actor Awards at the start of the month, Wunmi said she found it ‘exploitative and performative to have someone there without the full protection of everyone, including him and anyone in that audience’, and added that there would have been children present.
She told US TV show Entertainment Tonight: ‘I was there and it was painful to have that celebration kind of really tainted for me.
‘I have no hard feelings towards John Davidson at all. He has a condition. I feel like Bafta has a lot of lessons to learn.’
Wunmi continued: ‘That’s one thing, and then the BBC is a whole other thing. That’s the bit that really kind of kept me awake at night and brought tears to my eyes.
‘I was like, you really chose to keep that in? I can’t understand it, and I’m not sure if I can forgive it.’
She added: ‘Everyone who was impacted deserved the grace to have it taken out – the care to have it taken out. We found out later that night that it was online’
Another Sinners star to speak out on the slur as Jayme Lawson, who said that she thinks John was ‘exploited’ by BAFTA and has claimed that the BBC were ‘careless’ amid the ongoing Tourette’s racism row surrounding the recent ceremony.
Jayme spoke out on what happened, telling The Hollywood Reporter at the 57th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday that John’s ‘disability got exploited that night’.
She said on the red carpet: ‘I’ll first say a big shout out to Mike and Delroy, like let’s continue to honor them for how they handled that in real time, the grace and the dignity that they exercised, and the whole home team, everybody that was out there, like really carried themselves well.
‘I think the events this weekend exposed a couple things – Institutionally, we still don’t understand what inclusion means.
‘Just because you invite someone into a space, but you don’t provide the necessary resources to keep them and everyone else in that room safe by them being there, that’s not inclusivity. That’s exploitation.
‘That man’s disability got exploited that night, and it led to multiple offenses. That’s the BAFTA’s fault. And then the BBC, to air what they aired is careless.
‘And not like some haphazard accident, no, like a real lack of care was exercised for those two Black men. And we know the BBC knows how to take care of what they care about, right, because they censored a bunch of other… they went so far as to make sure certain things weren’t topics of conversation.
‘They censored Akinola’s speech, the director of My Father’s Shadow, which is an amazing film, by the way. So you censored one Black man, you failed to protect two others. You do not care for our dignity, our humanity.’
‘You want to celebrate our art, but you won’t protect, and that’s why we celebrate Sinners. That’s why we celebrate Ryan (Coogler) [the director of Sinners]. That’s why we show up to the NAACP, because those are spaces where we felt safe, where we feel safe.’
