Sideman ‘accepted career would be over’ after quitting BBC Radio over N-word controversy

Sideman has opened up about his decision to quit BBC Radio 1Xtra last year amid the controversy surrounding the news channel’s use of the N-word. 

The radio presenter sensationally left his 1Xtra show in August when the corporation didn’t immediately apologise for one of their TV reporters using the N-word. 

In July, correspondent Fiona Lamdin used the racial slur during a report on a racially motivated attack, repeating the term as it was allegedly used in the incident. 

Viewers were naturally outraged by the segment, which aired during the daytime, and the BBC received more than 18,000 complaints. 

Shortly after, Sideman – real name David Whitely – said that he was quitting his show as he couldn’t ‘look the other way’. 

Speaking about the move, Sideman told Metro.co.uk when asked if he was worried about losing his career: ‘No, but that’s because I had already lost my mind a couple of months back. When George Floyd passed, something clicked in me. Prior to all that, I wasn’t doing all this talking because I believed if you talk, you lose your career. 

‘If you don’t fit the mould that brands need you to fit, they won’t ask you to advertise because they don’t want somebody that doesn’t fit their political views. So after George passed and I said I have to speak on this, I thought in my head: “I’m throwing my career away”, so I went into acceptance mode of that. 

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‘Now it didn’t happen, I didn’t lose my career but I accepted it.’ 

The online personality continued: ‘So by the time it came to leaving the BBC, I had already become a person that said I’m going to be a person that says what’s right regardless of whatever. 

‘It just didn’t have any reason to come out [before].’ 

Sideman’s sidekick Zeze Millz – with whom he’s hosting new Amazon Music podcast +44 – praised her co-host for making such a drastic decision. 

The presenter explained: ‘As Black people, sometimes we need to take a step of “don’t mess with us anymore”. Just because everyone needs to pay their mortgage and rent and to live, sometimes they know that and they take the mick out of us. 

‘You can’t take a radio station that is devoted to Black culture and music with a whole load of Black presenters, and you haven’t rallied together and said this is unacceptable.’ 

She added: ‘I’ll rate David for that because he didn’t have anything else lined up, it wasn’t like I’m leaving the BBC but I’m in talks with somebody else, he literally was like, I’m going to do this, so hats off.’ 

The BBC’s Director-General Tony Hall issued an apology after Sideman left his radio show.

Listen to the +44 Podcast exclusively on Amazon Music.

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