Baylen Dupree defends Tourette’s activist John Davidson’s BAFTAs racial slur

Baylen Dupree defended fellow Tourette’s activist John Davidson after he yelled a racial slur at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo at the BAFTAs 2026.

The “Baylen Out Loud” star, who documents her own experience living with the syndrome, penned a lengthy statement on Instagram Tuesday, sharing why the neurodevelopmental disorder “doesn’t pull from hatred.”

“I need to speak on this as someone who lives with Tourette’s,” she wrote. “When you live with this disorder, you lose control of your own voice sometimes. And that is a terrifying thing.”

Dupree, 23, said the tics that people with Tourette’s suffer from “are not thoughts” and “not opinions.”

“They are not secret beliefs hiding underneath the surface. They are involuntary neurological impulses – like a sneeze or hiccup, except sometimes they attach themselves to words that carry weight, history, and pain,” she penned.

The TikTok star then asked her followers to think about how “heartbreaking” it is to say something “you don’t mean.”

“People think if a slur comes out, it must reflect what’s in your heart. But Tourette’s doesn’t pull from hatred — it often pulls from anxiety, from fear, from the very thing you’re most scared of saying,” Dupree added.

“The brain misfires on what feels charged or taboo. It doesn’t excuse the hurt a word carries. Words matter. History matters. Pain matters,” she wrote.

Dupree said there is a “difference between intent and impulse” and people who have Tourette’s often have to apologize for things they “didn’t choose.”

“It means living with the fear that one moment could define you forever. It means knowing that no matter how kind you are, no matter what you believe, one tic could make the world decide who you are,” she added.

Dupree concluded her statement by calling for people to be educated on the illness.

“You can hold space for the harm of a word while also holding space for the reality of a disorder. Compassion doesn’t cancel accountability – but education matters,” she said.

Please understand this: when someone with Tourette’s says something offensive as a tic, it is not coming from their heart. It’s coming from a brain that sometimes doesn’t give them a choice.”

During the BAFTAs Sunday, Jordan, 39, and Lindo, 73, who both star in the award-winning film “Sinners,” took the stage to present an award when Davidson, who has had Tourette’s since he was 12, yelled the N-word from the audience.

The actors looked shocked as they paused onstage but they quickly recovered and finished presenting the award.

Lindo later acknowledged to Vanity Fair at an afterparty that he and his co-star “did what [they] had to do” and kept presenting, he also said he wished “someone from BAFTA spoke to [them] afterwards.” 

Several stars slammed Davidson’s racial outburst, including Jamie Foxx, who called the act “unacceptable.”

“Nah he meant that s–t,” the “Ray” star, 58, wrote. “Out of all the words, you could’ve said Tourette’s makes you say that?”

Following the backlash, the BAFTAs issued an apology for airing the heartbreaking moment when they could have edited it out, as it aired two hours after the event.

Davidson also spoke out, saying he was “deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning.”