Ashley Banjo on Black Lives Matter, backlash and reality TV: ‘I’m a sceptic of cancel culture’
By the time he was 30, Ashley Banjo had spent nearly a decade in the public eye. Having pipped Susan Boyle to the Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) title with his dance group Diversity in 2009, he completed seven UK arena tours before transitioning back to television, with a slew of judging gigs on television dance shows, including Dancing on Ice, Got to Dance and Dance Dance Dance.
Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the backlash that followed Diversity’s appearance on BGT last September. The performance featured backing dancers in riot gear and the image of a white man standing on Banjo’s neck, a reference to the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that followed.
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.
“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. “I wasn’t trying to cause reform
