Alan Cumming has revealed he refused to speak to leaders at BAFTA after this year’s film awards, describing the controversy that unfolded when a Tourette’s campaigner was heard shouting a racial slur during the broadcast as a “s***show”.
Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson was attending the ceremony to celebrate the success of I Swear, a film based on his life and efforts to raise awareness of the condition. Davidson, who has uncontrollable tics, could be heard shouting the n-word as actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented the award for special effects. The BBC failed to edit the incident out of its broadcast and iPlayer version, prompting apologies from both the BBC and BAFTA.
Cumming, who hosted the ceremony, told The Times he did not hear any of Davidson’s tics during the event, including one that mentioned his own name. “It was an international scandal. Then poor John gave this interview saying, ‘I’m not a racist. I called Alan Cumming a paedophile too.’ Oh great! He’s equal opportunities and my name and ‘paedophile’ were in the same sentences all over the world,” Cumming said.
The 61-year-old actor added that he had no idea what had happened when he was given an apology to read from a teleprompter during the ceremony. “I watched myself back. I was very smiley. I didn’t do it with the gravitas and tone I would have used had I known. That p****d me off. It was bad, bad, bad, bad leadership. Bad people who weren’t doing their jobs properly, who really had not prepared and let people down,” he said.
Cumming, who is enjoying success as host of the US version of The Traitors, said he initially refused to talk to BAFTA when they apologised to him. The BAFTA TV Awards are set to take place this weekend, hosted by Greg Davies, with Netflix’s Adolescence leading nominations with 11 nods.
