Baylen Dupree Defends John Davidson After BAFTA Incident: “Can You Imagine How Heartbreaking It Is To Say Something That You Don’t Mean?”

Baylen Dupree, the eponymous star of TLC’s Baylen Out Loud, the biggest freshman cable hit last year, is a young woman who suffers from Tourette syndrome.

Dupree knows a thing or two about how the disease is perceived, and she has used her platform to defend John Davidson, the subject of the movie I Swear, after the Tourette’s sufferer and campaigner could be heard shouting various expletives throughout the BAFTA Film Awards ceremony Sunday in London.

“I need to speak on this as someone who lives with Tourette’s. When you live with this disorder, you lose control of your own voice sometimes. And that is a terrifying thing,” Dupree wrote Tuesday on social media. “Tics are not thoughts. They are not opinions. They are not secret beliefs hiding underneath the surface. They are involuntary neurological impulses – like a sneeze or a hiccup except sometimes they attach themselves to words that carry weight, history and pain. Can you imagine how heartbreaking it is to say something that you don’t mean?”

“To hear a word come out of your own mouth and feel immediate shame? To want to crawl out of your own body because your brain betrayed you? People think if a slur comes out, it must reflect what’s in your heart. But Tourette’s doesn’t pull from hatred – it often pulls from anxiety, from fear, from the very thing you’re most scared of saying. The brain misfires on what feels charged or taboo. It doesn’t excuse the hurt a word carries. Words matter. History matters. Pain matters. But so does neurological reality. There is a difference between intent and impulse,” she continued.

“Living with Tourette’s means constantly apologizing for something you didn’t choose. It means living with the fear that one moment could define you forever. It means knowing that no matter how kind you are, no matter what you believe, one tic could make the world decide who you are. And that’s devastating.”

There has been much fallout in the UK after the incident, which included Davidson shouting the N-word when Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented an award.