Delroy Lindo is opening up about what went through his mind during the racial slur incident at the 2026 BAFTA Film Awards — the moment Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson yelled the n‑word while Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were presenting.
The Sinners star, 73, discussed the moment on NPR’s Fresh Air with host Tonya Mosley on March 5, where he recalled how he and Jordan reacted when Davidson, 54, shouted the slur during their Feb. 22 appearance.
Before diving in, Lindo gently pushed back. “Can I stop you for one second? With all due respect,” he said in a clip shared on Instagram. “With all due respect, I’m actually not going to talk about this.” He laughed, noting that when Mosley teased the topic in her intro, he thought, “No, we’re not.”
Still, Lindo eventually explained that he and Jordan “both had similar responses” in the moment.
“You have to understand, we had jobs to do. We were the first presenters of the evening,” he said. “We had to read that teleprompter, and we both did exactly that.”
Lindo added that his wife later told him she noticed he adjusted his glasses — a tiny tell that “something was happening internally.” “There was a nanosecond when I’m thinking, ‘Wait, did I just hear what I thought I heard?’ ” he said.
“But then — and it truly was a nanosecond — one had to read the teleprompter and get on with presenting the award,” the Oscar nominee continued. “I processed in the way that I processed in a nanosecond, Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Davidson, who was invited to represent the film I Swear — based on his life with Tourette syndrome — later apologized in a March 1 Facebook post. “Whilst I will never apologize for having Tourette syndrome, I will apologize for any pain, upset and misunderstanding that it may create,” he wrote, adding that the week had been “tough” and underscored how misunderstood the condition remains.
The BAFTA organization also issued a formal apology to Lindo and Jordan on Feb. 23, after the ceremony aired on the BBC without editing out the moment.
