BAFTA’s racial slur controversy escalates after Google’s news alert

The 2026 BAFTAs had an unfortunate moment that upset a number of people, but it was made worse with a news update sent out by Google.

During the event, when presenters Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting the award for the Best Visual Effects category an audience member shouted out a racial slur at them.

It turns out that the n-word was said by John Davidson as part of an involuntary tic linked to Tourette’s syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder explored in the BAFTA-winning film I Swear.

After the mishap, Google sent a news alert with the headline “How the Tourette’s Fallout Unfolded at the BAFTA Film Awards,” it invited readers to “see more on” shockingly adding the same slur with it.

The massive search engine then issued a statement to Deadline, since it was the outlet’s article they were referencing, noting, “We’re very sorry for this mistake. We’ve removed the offensive notification and are working to prevent this from happening again.”

It also noted, “The original version of this story stated that the Google news alert was AI-generated. Google has since made clear that, although the inclusion of the N-word was a tech error, it was not AI-generated.”

The outlet reported that it was a mistake made by their safety filters, and that they did not properly trigger at the offensive language which is what caused the issue.

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