The audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium gave Ryan Coogler and Delroy Lindo a standing ovation at the NAACP Image Awards on Saturday. As soon as the duo walked onstage to present best actress in a motion picture, the audience rose to its feet and applauded the “Sinners” duo.
Referring to the BAFTA Awards on February 22 — when John Davidson, a Tourette’s activist and the subject of the film “I Swear,” involuntarily shouted the shouted the N-word while Lindo and his “Sinners” costar Michael B. Jordan were presenting an award — Lindo said, “I’d just like to officially say, I appreciate — we appreciate all the support and love we have been shown in the aftermath of what happened last weekend. It means a lot to us.”
He added that the support following the BAFTAs was a “classic case of something that could be very negative becoming very positive. It’s an honor to be here.”
It was Lindo’s second standing ovation of the evening. While presenting the breakthrough award to “Sinners” actor Miles Caton, “One Battle After Another” star Regina Hall asked the crowd at to “take a moment for the two kings in the audience” and gestured toward Jordan and Lindo. “I just send you so much love for your class.”
Hall’s salute to Jordan and Lindo came after host Deon Cole nodded to the controversial event during his opening monologue, saying, “If there are any white men out there with Tourette’s, I advise you to tell them to read the room tonight.”
Davidson, BAFTA and the BBC have apologized for the slur, which was not edited out of the broadcast, even though the show is edited in real time to fit into a two-hour time slot. BAFTA has pledged to do a “comprehensive review” of the incident.
“Sinners” production designer Hannah Beachler expressed her reaction on X (formerly Twitter): “I keep trying to write about what happened at the BAFTAs, and I can’t find the words. The situation is almost impossible, but it happened three times that night, and one of the three times was directed at myself on the way to dinner after the show and a third time at a Black woman. I understand and deeply know why this is an impossible situation. I know we must handle this with grace and continue to push through. But what made the situation worse was the throw away apology of ‘if you were offended’ at the end of the show.
“Of course we were offended… but our frequency, our spiritual vibration is tuned to a higher level than what happened,” Beachler continued. “I am not steal [sic], this did not bounce off of me, but I exist above it. It can’t take away from who I am as an artist.”
When asked about the moment, Lindo told Vanity Fair that he and Jordan “did what we had to do” while presenting at the BAFTAs, but added that he wished “someone from BAFTA spoke to us afterward.”
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