British talent has become the subject of 10,267 complaints from angry viewers about the diversity routines of important black lives.
The number of complaints rose throughout the week after Ashley Banjo led the dance troupe for a Raw performance on a Saturday evening episode.
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The performance, which witnessed Jordan’s brother Ashley lying on the ground with a white police officer kneeling on him, references George Floyd’s death in the United States.
There were also stand dancers wearing riot gear and the group took a knee during the performance.
The strong performance of diversity is now the second most to complain of a television moment in a decade.
The first is the drama of the famous older brother Roxanne Palette with former Korean star Ryan Thomas with 25,327 complaints, and Kim Woodburn’s interview on “Loose Women” comes in third with 7,912 complaints.
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Ashley revealed earlier this week that he had received a barrage of performance abuse.
But the backup judge on the show thanked his critics for proving it was a necessary performance.
He wrote on Twitter: “There is a lot to say … But I’ll let the show speak. Thousands of love and support messages – thank you.
“For thousands of letters of hate and ignorance – thank you. It highlights exactly what needs to be changed. It only sends love to all of you.”
Some BGT viewers said the “strong” performance made them cry while others insisted that the “political statement” had no place in the talent show.
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One wrote, “Powerful, poignant, and thought provoking. Everything I did was amazing.”
Another tweet: “Just an amazing strong performance! It made me cry. You guys are just the best !!!”
Third post: “Keep doing the right thing. This piece was extremely powerful.”
The variety performed their amazing dance moves in front of the supportive dancers who were dressed in riot police uniforms with shields.
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Jordan’s brother Ashley fought back tears yesterday over the “terrible” complaints, speaking on his “Kiss Radio” program that he said was “really sad.”
Jordan, 27, said: “Of course she gets some criticism but she usually focuses on dancing.
“But that was different, it was really important, and it was special to us.
“We are all about positivity and love and we got a lot of positivity and love from this.
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“But we were also bombarded with messages and articles about horrific things about us, about our families, about how diversity isn’t diverse enough right now because there are only five white people.”
He added after feeling the emotion: “I cannot speak on behalf of anyone else, it is sad, it is really sad.”
Meanwhile, Perry responded to a critic by telling them to “get into the trash.”
Ashley, who was a judge on the weekend of injured Simon Cowell, opened the performance by reciting a viral poem titled The Great Realization of singer TomFollery, which is about the BLM movement and police brutality.
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The performance has also touched on the coronavirus, capitalism, and the growth of delivery services like Amazon.
Host Dec Donnelly called it “strong” moments after it ended.
After the performance, Ashley said: “This performance is very special to me and the rest of the variety.
“2020 was a wonderful moment in history for both positive and negative reasons.
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“We wanted to use the platform that we got to make our voices heard, to express how the events of this year made us feel and think about how we might view them in the future … we call it hindsight 2020.”
