ITV
Jim Davidson sensationally walked out of a discussion on race with Ashley Banjo after criticising Diversity’s BLM routine.
Last year the Britain’s Got Talent winners performed an emotive dance inspired by the death of George Floyd in the US.
While many praised the performance, they were met with a huge wave of Ofcom complaints, with the comedian, 67, among those taking aim at the group in a shocking, explicit rant.
He suggested the dance troupe should do a routine about black men mugging people in the video, entitled ‘Who Needs Diversity?’.
He said the dancers “don’t give a f*** about George [Floyd]” following their raw Britain’s Got Talent performance inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“You just want to be famous don’t you. You want to be all around the world. That’s why you do it”, he added.
Banjo, 33, invited Jim for a debate about race and his previous comments, and filmed the scenes for his ITV documentary Ashley Banjo: Britain in Black and White, which aired last night.
However, things quickly took a tense turn as the Celebrity Big Brother star attempted to defend his words.
Discussing the clip, Ashley said: “As far as I’m concerned, that video you made… It was racist in every way, in every single way.
“It was personal and racist. I’m from this country, I love this country, I’m from a mixed race background.”
Jim insisted that race had nothing to do with his rant, and claimed that Diversity managed to ‘diffuse’ tensions around the topic with their dance.
“You should know that I believe the outcome from that dance is more than your wildest dreams,” he said of the performance.
“People in this country who are frightened, old white people if you like, like me, are thinking there’s riots going on in Brixton, in south east London where I grew up, there’s stuff going on in America that’s very unsavoury, everyone’s frightened.
“You diffused that. People are supporting you of all different races, I support Black Lives Matter, I don’t support Black Lives Matter the movement, I support the statement. You’ve won me over.”
Explaining what his issue with the dance was, Jim said that it was “on a light entertainment show on a Saturday night”.
However, as they continued to clashed over his video, and the topic of race in general, he abruptly decided to leave the conversation, with Ashley attempting to stop him from walking out.
After being told to ‘stick to dancing’, the BGT star told the camera: “I am disappointed because it was an opportunity for us to sit and really engage in a discussion.
“I’ve barely got into half the questions I wanted to ask him. In a way, maybe he did the right thing because it was only going to get harder for him.
“I wanted to have a chat, a constructive, even if not palatable chat about racism. And he’s telling me that I didn’t listen. I was listening, I just didn’t agree.”
Fans watching on from home were full of praise for the calm way Ashley handled the incident, and flocked to Twitter to share their views.
Here’s what people had to say:
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