Ashley Banjo reacts to backlash over BGT performance
Ashley Banjo has been filling in for Simon Cowell as a judge on Britain's Got Talent.
During the semi-final earlier this month, he performed a Black Lives Matter inspired routine with his dance group Diversity.
The UK media watchdog Ofcom has since received over 15,000 complaints about the performance.
Ashley has released a video on Instagram addressing the complaints.
He said, "It's been a crazy week and I've kind of been a bit quiet on social, I've been living life trying not to get caught up in it all."
"But I feel like now is the time to just come out and say a few things."
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Ashley continued, "Firstly, I just want to say thank you to all the people who supported what me and Diversity did with that performance."
"They've reached out, honestly it's overwhelming the positive reaction to what we did."
"Hundreds of thousands of messages, comments, DMs, and just interactions in the street."
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"We stand by every single decision we made..."
"I know that a lot of the press reports and the headlines have been about the complaints and the negativity..."
"But trust me I'm right in the centre of it and the negativity is the minority."
The dancer insisted, "We stand by every single decision we made with that performance."
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Ashley continued, "Moving onto negativity, it's been a lot."
"Everything from racial abuse to threats, to just some really nasty stuff that I'm not even going to bring light to."
"I'm not going to give it anymore time than it deserves."
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Online trolling
After posting that video, Ashley shared some screenshots of the online trolling Diversity have been facing.
He wrote, 'I didn’t want to even shed light on any of this directly.'
'But here’s just a small selection from the past week. And please don’t worry about or feel sorry for me...'
He continued, 'Feel sorry for the people that endure this kind of abuse and have no voice or platform.'
'Feel sorry for the people that have been singled out, abused and in some cases murdered because of the colour of their skin.'
'The only saving grace is that this is the vast minority... But for all the people asking or wondering - yes it is very real and yes it does exist.'
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Alesha Dixon shows her support
Ashley's fellow Britain's Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon has been showing her support for the group online.
According to the Independent, she commented, '[They] can kiss my black a**!' under one of his Instagram post's about the racist abuse Diversity have received.
It had also been reported that if ITV apologise for the performance, Alesha will quit.
However, a representative for the judge has slammed these claims, 'There is no truth in the story whatsoever.'
They told the Independent, 'Alesha never threatened to quit if ITV apologised, but she is fully supportive of Ashley and Diversity.'
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No further comment has been made.
