Following the use of the slur, the BBC stood by the remark, stating, “This was a story about a shocking unprovoked attack on a young black man. His family told the BBC about the racist language used by the attackers and wanted to see the full facts made public… A warning was given before this was reported. We are no longer running this version of the report but are continuing to pursue the story.”
The BBC’s stance drew more than 18,000 complaints and resulted in the resignation of BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman. Tony Hall, the former BBC director general, eventually told staff, “The BBC now accepts that we should have taken a different approach at the time of broadcast and we are very sorry for that.” In his interview with the Radio Times, McQueen said, “That they didn’t react on the N-word is ridiculous… I can’t tell you what I did. But there was going to be some kind of boycott on my part if that wasn’t corrected because it was so offensive it was untrue.” IndieWire interviewed McQueen about the film series back in September. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
