ASHLEY BANJO
EYES wet, swallowing back emotion, Ashley Banjo stood on stage at the BAFTAS on Sunday night, pointed to his trophy and told tens of thousands who engulfed him in a “torrent” of racial abuse last year to take a good look.
“Just take a look, because as much as there are so many conversations and so much that needs to change, this is what change looks like,” he said.
Ashley, 32, and his dance group Diversity, which won Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, scooped the public-voted Virgin Media’s Must-see Moment Award for the now famous routine during Ashley’s stint as judge on the ITV show last year.
The routine chronicled the events of 2020 but the controversy came from a section that referenced the killing of American George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests.
It delivered a crucial message but in its wake followed a “dark time”.
Possibly the darkest time of his life, in which he, his brother Jordan and the group were plunged into a terrifying cauldron of racist abuse and death threats over the routine.
Almost 25,000 viewers complained to Ofcom, making it the second most complained about TV moment in a decade.
The watchdog did not uphold them, stating the routine’s “message was a call for social cohesion and unity”.
Ashley admits the avalanche of abuse on social media left him fearing for his family.
He was forced to beef up his home security, heartbroken he needed to do that for his scared wife and two young children.
“After the routine there was so much negativity. At one point I think I was counting 70 to 100 tweets a minute,” he says.
“You get abusive messages and threats – ‘We know where you train, we know where you live’.
“We had to beef up our security system, just to make everyone who was home alone feel safer.
“When it was all kicking off my wife rang me and wanted to check how to set the alarm, what beams were where and where the keys were.”
But the dad-of-two has never regretted the groundbreaking routine.
He praised Ofcom and ITV for supporting it and the wave of positive messages he received, including a call from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
And on stage on Sunday he not only thanked supporters, but those who complained and even abused him.
“Thank you to everyone who stood by us. Every phone call, text, comment, DM, you guys made the difference to what was a really dark time,” he said. “Being