![]() ![]() ![]() “I was in a buggy in the corner of the studio from when I was born,” he says. His Nigerian father, Funso, originally moved to Scotland to attend boarding school before settling in Forest Gate, while his mother, Dani, a dance teacher, was born and raised in Ilford. “I was naturally born to be a boxer but dad wasn’t having it – he said I could put my face to better use.”īanjo was born in Leytonstone, east London, but grew up in Essex. His dad actually was a heavyweight boxer: “It’s much harder to dance when you’re big,” says Banjo, who is 6ft 6in. Weary after a day of trying on outfits, he is now wearing the biggest item of clothing I have ever seen: a fluffy, grey fleece that drowns his heavyweight boxer physique. I meet Banjo on a boat, moored outside an east London studio, where he is being photographed. understood racism in Britain and what it felt like to have a certain level of backlash … In the sea of negativity, it was a huge help.” I was born to be a boxer but dad wasn’t having it – he said I could put my face to better use “They called when everything was going on, just to check in and offer their support. He also received encouragement from a few people he “wouldn’t normally hear from” following the BGT performance: Elton John contacted him, as did the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Photograph: Dymond/Thames/Syco/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Banjo, centre, and Diversity in the 2020 Britain’s Got Talent performance that led to 30,000 complaints. I’ve had personal conversations with people who have apologised when they realised where they might have gone wrong.” But there’s a lot of people who felt uncomfortable, or who didn’t even see it and complained because their mate in the pub was complaining. Probably a lot of those people are racist. “Listen, there’s a lot of ignorance but I don’t think the 30,000 people are racist,” he says. On social media, he says, racial slurs were just “sitting there untamed” in stark contrast to the platforms’ crackdown on Covid-19 misinformation or women who “even hint at showing a nipple”.īanjo holds less resentment against people who expressed disapproval respectfully, including those who complained to Ofcom. As the face of the operation, Banjo became a particular target. ![]() In doing so, he pushed his troupe into unfamiliar, politically charged terrain, and unleashed a torrent of online threats and abuse. What was ‘wrong’ is that I brought in Black Lives Matter.” “I wasn’t trying to cause reform or change policy, I was just bringing the conversation to a place that is natural for me: a stage.” Without the BLM element, he says, “it wouldn’t have been too political or too sad, or not right for light entertainment. “People were very quick to label it the Black Lives Matter performance but I wasn’t trying to make a political statement,” says Banjo, 33. To date, it has racked up more than 30,000 complaints to the media regulator Ofcom, earning a spot as one of the top five most complained about moments in UK TV history. ![]()
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