Wunmi Mosaku reveals ‘Sinners’ win at BAFTAs was ‘tainted’ by N-word controversy as slur was also shouted at her during broadcast
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The ‘Sinners’ cast, from Mosaku to Jayme Lawson to Delroy Lindo, have all spoken out about the incident ahead of the Oscars.
Despite her historic win for Supporting Actress at the BAFTA Awards, “Sinners” star Wunmi Mosaku says her victory felt “tainted” due to the controversial incident involving Tourette’s advocate John Davidson having an involuntary tic and yelling the N-word while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting.
Mosaku was on the red carpet for the Actor Awards on Sunday (Mar. 1), and when Entertainment Tonight host Kevin Frazier brought up the heartbreaking moment, Mosaku described her emotions and why she doesn’t hold any ill will toward Davidson.
“It was incredibly painful to have that celebration kind of really tainted for me,” she told Frazier around the two-minute mark of their conversation. “I have no hard feeling toward John Davidson at all – he has a condition. I feel like BAFTA has a lot of lessons to learn, but I think Jayme Lawson said it yesterday, it felt exploitative and performative to have someone there without the full protection of everyone, including him, and anyone in that audience.”
She continued, “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. I can’t understand it and I’m not sure I can forgive it.”
According to Deadline, Davidson also shouted the slur at Mosaku, but that incident was edited out of the BBC broadcast of the award show. However, BBC Director General Tim Davie explained that there was confusion in the production truck at the first time Davidson yelled the slur and the second time he yelled it.
“Our understanding at this point is that the team editing the show in the truck mistakenly believed they had edited out the incident that was being referenced, on the basis that they had heard and edited out the slur shouted out during the Best Supporting Actress award,” wrote Davie. “Therefore, when they were told a racial slur had been shouted, they believed they had removed it.”
The incident has been the subject of a public back-and-forth between the BBC and Warner Bros., the studio that released “Sinners.”
Executives from the film studio lashed out, according to Deadline. They still wondered why the incident made the final cut for the BAFTAs despite the delay, why it remained online for 15 hours before being removed, and what steps the BBC would take to prevent future incidents.