SNL Under Fire for ‘Disgusting’ Tourette Sketch After BAFTA Slur Controversy

Saturday Night Live is facing backlash online for what users have branded a “disgusting” and “shameful” sketch over the weekend that depicted celebrities explaining off their past controversies as symptoms of Tourette syndrome, mocking last week’s BAFTA slur incident.

The segment, which was cut from the NBC broadcast due to time constraints and later released online, featured cast members playing celebrities, including Mel Gibson, Armie Hammer, Bill Cosby, and Kanye West, claiming they have Tourette syndrome as an excuse.

The sketch followed last weekend’s BAFTA ceremony, where Scottish campaigner John Davidson, who has Tourette syndrome, involuntarily shouted a racial slur while Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan were presenting an award. The pre-recorded moment was later broadcast by the BBC.

In the SNL sketch, Andrew Dismukes, as Gibson, said: “I’m Mel Gibson, and as I probably should have pointed out decades ago, I, too, suffer from Tourette’s, which explains a lot of the things I’ve said or yelled through the years.”

“Since it’s Tourettes, I guess I have to be forgiven, if not celebrated,” said Connor Storrie’s Hammer, who used the disorder to explain his past cannibalism controversy in the sketch.

The mock public service announcement declared it was “brought to you by National Workforce of Rethinking Disabilities, or N.W.O.R.D.”

The clip was quickly slapped with a community note explaining the condition while users piled on to slam the sketch.

British journalist Lewis Goodall called the sketch “genuinely shameful,” writing: “The joke is basically nothing more sophisticated than ‘people with serious disabilities make it up.’”

The Independent’s Washington Bureau Chief Eric Michael Garcia said: “This is honestly gross and punching down in the worst possible way”:

Other users accused the SNL team’s bit as “disgusting” and compared the sketch to “progressive” outrage over President Donald Trump mocking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski in 2015:

At the BAFTAs, Davidson, who has coprolalia, a form of Tourette syndrome that can cause involuntary swearing or socially inappropriate remarks, left the auditorium after the incident and in a later statement said he was “deeply mortified if anyone” thought the outburst was “intentional.”

In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said: “Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the Bafta Film Awards. This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and as explained during the ceremony it was not intentional. We apologise that this was not edited out prior to broadcast and it has been removed from BBC iPlayer.”

In a statement issued last Sunday, Davidson said that while he would not apologize for having Tourette syndrome, he apologized for the “pain, upset and misunderstanding that it may create.”

Still, fellow actors like past BAFTA winner Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce were gobsmacked by the situation, taking to social media to vent their frustration.

“Out of all the words, you could have said Tourette’s makes you say that?” Foxx said in an Instagram comment on a post about the video, before adding “Nah he meant that sh*t” and “Unacceptable.”

Pierce said that if anybody was to receive an apology or explanation, it should be Jordan and Lindo.

Watch above via YouTube.

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