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Ashley Banjo has said he got some high-profile support for Diversity's Black Lives Matter-inspired routine when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle gave him a call.
The dancer and TV judge said he was "super grateful" for their support in the wake of 24,500 complaints about the dance performance that featured on Britain's Got Talent in October 2020.
Despite the mountain of complaints, Diversity's routine has now been nominated for a Bafta in the must-see television moment category and Ashley told Good Morning Britain that the performance had been a "life-changing moment".
As presenter Susanna Reid called Harry and Meghan's call a "pretty significant bit of contact", he agreed: "It is actually, I think it's more significant because of how many parallels we drew in the conversation.
"They really had been through a lot and I didn't realise until after I saw their interview (with Oprah Winfrey) quite how much.
"We had a great chat about it and I was just super grateful to them in that moment giving me a call."
In March, Harry and Meghan aired a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey where they claimed that racist comments about the potential colour of their son Archie's skin had been made by a member of the Royal Family before his birth.
Talking about the effects of the Black Lives Matter dance routine, which took its inspiration from the killing of George Floyd by a US police officer, Ashley said he could feel the difference it had made.
He said: "Just walking out in the street and just feeling love from people, you feel that, you feel how much more positive it is and how many people are in support of this.
"It's overwhelming, it literally was a life-changing event."
The 32-year old said of the controversy: "I don't really know what happened, I'm still a little bit confused all this time on.
"But we did something that was real to us, something that was in our hearts and a lot of people didn't like it but there was an awful lot of people that did and supported it."
He added: "A lot of people actually that I disagree with are correct that I suppose it was unexpected for it to be in a family entertainment show and at that time on ITV, but I think where I disagree with those people is that it was the wrong platform.
"Just because it was unexpected doesn't mean that it was wrong. I think a lot of people felt uncomfortable being faced with the truth."
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