There were 30,000 complaints to Ofcom when Banjo and his dance group, Diversity, referenced the death of George Floyd on prime-time TV. Now he has followed up the outcry with a film about racism
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.
