Ashley Banjo says he is still bombarded by social media abuse, 18 months after his group Diversity’s Black Lives Matter-inspired routine on Britain’s Got Talent.
The dancer’s appearance on Good Morning Britain last week, in which he discussed the routine, sparked a new round of hostility from online trolls.
“It happens all the time,” he said.
“I did this slot on GMB to talk about how life-changing it was winning a BAFTA for the routine and I went on Twitter afterwards, and it was just like a stream of comments. The negative ones always cut through.”
But the defiant star is refusing to bow to the trolls and is taking the famous dance up and down the country as part of the group’s nationwide tour.
However, he admits he still gets nervous about the reaction to the routine.
“Every night, I go down and take that knee and there’s a little part of me that just kind of goes, ‘I wonder what’s gonna happen’. You just don’t know,” he said.
The routine has gone down well with fans who have flocked to see the group on their Connected tour, which kicked off earlier this month. It takes in 79 dates, including shows at London’s Palladium next week.
“We never got the opportunity to perform that routine in front of a crowd at the time because of Covid,” Ashley, 33, said.
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“We’ve never felt what it feels like. You can only guess what the audience may react to but you don’t know. To see an audience react to it is a completely different feeling.”
Ofcom received more than 31,000 complaints after the troupe’s BGT performance in September 2020.
It featured dancers in riot gear and the image of a white man standing on Ashley’s neck, a reference to the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd.
The tour runs until June 19. Tickets are on sale now at www.gigsandtours.com and www.ticketmaster.co.uk.
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