Naga Munchetty received a show of support from drag performer Amrou Al-Kadhi during Friday’s BBC Breakfast, following the recent controversy over her comments about President Trump.
After returning to the BBC daytime show on Thursday – during which she made no reference to the row – the presenter sat down with Amrou to talk about their new book Unicorn, but they kicked things off by praising Naga.
After being introduced, Amrou said: “Naga I just wanted to say I’m so excited to be here with you. And all people of colour were standing alongside you the past week.
“Us sisters have to stick together, and it’s never, never biased to call out racism. So it’s a real honour to be here with you today.”
Naga responded: “Thank you for your thoughts.”
Naga had been at the centre of headlines over the last week, after the BBC ruled she’d breached impartiality guidelines with comments she’d made in response to racist tweets sent by US president Donald Trump back in July.
After the BBC’s decision was heavily criticised in the media, including by several of her peers, director-general Tony Hall announced he was overturning the ruling.
However, until now, the row had not been addressed on air on BBC Breakfast.
The way this was brought up by Amrou during their appearance on the show quickly won praise on Twitter...
Amrou later wrote they were “very proud to be able to show solidarity” with the “absolutely wonderful” Naga.
“Thank you so much to Naga and Charlie for having me on to discuss my book UNICORN, and for such warm, generous questions. I had the best time,” they wrote on Twitter.
Back in July, Naga had responded to Trump’s tweets suggesting four Democratic politicians should “go back” to their home countries, saying she was “absolutely furious”.
She noted: “Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism.
“Now, I’m not accusing anyone of anything here, but you know what certain phrases mean.”
The tweets in question had been written about US politicians Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. All four are US citizens, and three of them were born in America.
BBC Breakfast airs daily at 6am on BBC One and BBC News.