Phillip Schofield has waded into the row over Stacey Dooley’s trip to Uganda for Comic Relief, after the TV star was labelled a “white saviour” by politician David Lammy.
The Strictly Come Dancing champ and documentary maker has faced criticism after she shared a photo of her posing with a young child taken during her trip on Instagram, which she captioned: “Obsesssssssssed.”
Stacey has since been accused of perpetuating “tired and unhelpful stereotypes” by the Labour MP after travelling to Africa for the upcoming charity film.
On Thursday’s This Morning, Phillip insisted Stacey’s picture was “essentially very innocent” and defended the star.
“We all watch and love Comic Relief,” he said. “Loads of people on the telly have gone and made their videos, Stacey did that and this has been seen as unacceptable… what does colour have to do with anything?
“If you’re well meaning, so you think ‘okay I can’t go there because I am white’ or ‘I can’t do this charity video because I am white’, this in itself is racist.”
He added: “Aren’t we all trying to get to a world where we don’t think about colour and it’s irrelevant and ‘I want to help you regardless of colour’?”
During the debate, David Lammy called in to the ITV show to speak to Phillip and his co-presenter Holly Willoughby.
He told them: “There is a place for charity but there are big questions about how it’s done, and the formula for Comic Relief sending out celebrities on expensive flights.
“And if you look at Stacey’s photo, you’ve got a beautiful white heroine with a black baby with its fingers in its mouth - and any parent would have sorted that out in the shot - looking helpless with no agency, no parents around and she’s there as the white saviour.
“That is a story that’s now hundreds of years old… and it’s precisely what keeps Africa poor because Comic Relief is not challenging the audience to ask deeper questions of how and why, it’s simply saying ‘sit back and give us some money’.”
Phillip then said: “In which case, we scrap Comic Relief and don’t send them any money?”
David replied: “I’m not saying that. You could have some Africans talking about their context, you could go to African comedians, you could film part of the night in the continent of Africa.
“Unfortunately Stacey has run into the same criticism that Ed Sheeran has a few years ago, and Madonna when she went over to Africa… and it’s my job to represent my constituents and be very clear that many ethnic minorities in Britain find this deeply, deeply problematic.”
The MP then explained his reasons for not getting involved himself with Comic Relief, insisting it was time for the charity to “move on” and accept there was a need for “change and reform”.
“I’m not a filmmaker,” he said. “There are thousands of African filmmakers, thousands of African celebrities… they don’t need me, my job is to raise the debate. Comic Relief can easily do this if they get off their high horse, get off the tired formula, don’t just rely on the BBC to trot out the same old thing, and they accept there is a need for change and reform...it’s now time for Comic Relief to move on.”
Comic Relief has released a statement on the matter, in which they say they are “really grateful” to Stacey for going to Uganda for filming and “make no apologies for this”.
They also add: “We have previously asked David Lammy if he would like to work with us to make a film in Africa and he has not responded. The offer is still open.”