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Craig David says Bo’ Selecta ‘ruined his life’ as he calls out Keith Lemon as a ‘bully’
‘Every sketch felt personal. It felt like a vendetta and when it got a following, it became something that affected me’
Craig David has accused Keith Lemon of being a bully, claiming his show Bo’ Selecta was ‘racist’ and ‘ruined his life’.
The R&B singer appeared on the Channel 4 show when he was just twenty-one, and joined a panel of celebrity guests including Mel B, David Beckham and chat show host Trisha Goddard.
Bo’ Selecta ran from 2002 to 2009, and saw host Keith Lemon – real name Francis Leigh – impersonate celebrity guests in a satirical caricature style.
However, David has now said his appearance on the show ‘ruined his life’, adding that host Leigh was ‘racist’ and a ‘bully’.
Speaking to The Times, David recalled watching the show with his mum, where they saw Francis impersonating David by wearing a ‘daft head’ with a vague likeness to him. He says they also portrayed him as ‘an idiot with a colostomy bag’.
He explained: “[Leigh] was highlighting characteristics he felt would trigger us personally.
“Every sketch felt personal. It felt like a vendetta and when it got a following, it became something that affected me. People would shout at me on the street and I felt the same feeling I had when I was bullied at school.
“Leigh Francis had normalised bullying by making it comedy.”
He added that Leigh dressing up and using ‘blackface’ makeup was ‘racist’, saying: “It was bullying across the board for everyone. When he put blackface on, that was being racist.”
Francis apologised for his previous behaviour on the show when the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining traction in 2020, though David has questioned the authenticity behind his apology.
He said: “We can all apologise when on the back foot. The moment of expressing his apology seemed very coincidentally timed.
“Has he reached out to any of the people he did on his show? He hasn’t reached out to me. Has he gone to communities to talk about bullying? Racism? And to be educated? You can only ask him.
“All I’ve seen since his apology is people still tweeting him thinking Bo’ Selecta is fun and the tone of his response being very much still, ‘I’m the funny guy here’. That he still plays it like a joke after his apology tells me everything.”