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Subject:

I do want to say, regarding the previous post...

From: Marriage4All Find all posts by Marriage4All View Marriage4All's profile Send private message to Marriage4All
Date: Mon, 23-Feb-2026 3:42:05 PM PST
Where: SoapZone Community Message Board
In topic: Week of February 23 POTPOURRI--what's on your mind? posted by Wahoo
In reply to: John Davidson, Who Yelled N-Word as Michael B. Jordan Presented at BAFTAs, posted by Antwon
...that John Davidson does genuinely have coprolalia. He's extremely well known for it (I actually remember watching his documentary from the 80s as a kid, where he had to sit alone in a room because he wasn't allowed in the cafeteria and also was not allowed to sit for exams). And that is, unfortunately, different from what some people may see as Tourette Syndrome, which is often just saying or yelling random words. Coprolalia is event-specific. You absolutely are processing who and what is in front of you, your brain goes to the worst possible thing you could say, and it basically forces you to say that. John has, at various points in his life:

-Yelled that he had a bomb at the airport.
-Was walking home after going to get some sugar, passed a cop, and promptly told the cop he had crack cocaine and was arrested.
-Was asked about a friend who had been killed and promptly told the cops "I killed him!" (I think that time, the cops knew who he was, but not sure)
-Called his mother a slut while grocery shopping. It happened so many times, at one point I believe he was asked not to come back.
-Called a judge a c*** while trying to be sworn in for testimony over one of his legal issues.
-Used racial slurs for other various ethnicities, which one point led to him being beaten nearly to death.

So the idea that he said it because he has racist thoughts...that's just not the case. I assure you, he did NOT want to tell the cops he had crack cocaine. It is a horrible, horrible, horrible condition. It's incredibly isolating. It's usually what the person in question wants most in the world NOT to say. John has had persistent suicidal ideology and at one point when he was younger attempted suicide, which is the case for ONE IN FOUR patients with TS. One in four will actively attempt or complete suicide in their lives. John is not faking it. I understand thinking this apology isn't sufficient - I personally am more likely to blame BAFTA/BBC, because their warning in advance appears to be woefully insufficient ("may have involuntary movements or sounds" is not gonna cut it when the TS patient has coprolalia) and had TWO HOURS to bleep it so it at least didn't traumatize the rest of the audience and was apparently too busy making sure no one said anything political or anything bad about The Pedo Formerly Known As Prince Andrew (an actual rule they were supposedly super insistent about) to bother bleeping this. Which only further humiliated two incredibly talented Black actors who were already certainly horrified, confused, and understandably furious, but it painted a target on the back of a man who has a very complex neurological condition and he's now facing...probably more people hating him than he's ever seen in his life. Since I'm not Black, I'm certainly not going to say people can't be furious and horrified. I just am a little concerned that I saw people implying either that he doesn't genuinely have this condition (he probably has the most well-documented case in the world) or that saying awful things somehow reflects what he truly believes. Every person who knows English in the world knows that word. Scottish people may not fully grasp its hideous history in the US, but they know it's the worst thing they can call a Black person for the most part. Which, if you have coprolalia, is very bad. It doesn't mean he believes it. Everyone who has ever spent any time with this man says he is kind and lovely, and he spends his life trying to make this disease less stigmatizing. It's not even really a mental condition - it's neurons misfiring in your brain. You have absolutely no control over it whatsoever.


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