British national Martin Freeman was born on September 8, 1971, in Aldershot. His acting career began when he made his stage debut as Craig Parnell in a 1997 episode of The Bill. A handful of his other acting credits include This Life, Picking Up the Pieces, Lock, Stock, The Low Down, Linda Green, Love Actually, The Office, Shaun of the Dead, etc.
After his remarks in a widely shared video were brought to light, English actor Martin Freeman faced accusations of racism. A user going by the handle @htmljones posted a little video on Tiktok in which they picked out English celebrities they believed to be racist.
Martin Freeman was mentioned last on the list, behind singers Harry Styles and Lana Del Rey. Based on screenshots of an anonymous chat that was posted on a Tumblr blog, the Sherlock Holmes star feels that diversity “divides rather than unites people” but that racism is morally wrong.
Screenshots of an anonymous discussion from a Tumblr blog, where the Sherlock star is said to believe that racism is immoral but that “multiculturalism divides rather than unites people,” were flashed by the TikTok user.
Martin Freeman Controversy
With over 24k likes and over 500 comments, the video went viral on the internet. The claim made by many that Martin Freeman is a racist was contested. Martin Freeman made remarks in a 2008 interview with the Daily Mail that a lot of people found to be disrespectful, callous, and overtly racist. Comments about multiculturalism set the tone, and things only got worse from there.
According to Freeman, multiculturalism hasn’t helped and doesn’t help because it so greatly divides people. “I don’t support racism in any form, but it’s normal and acceptable to acknowledge that there are differences,” the speaker said.
Even though this was already a contentious statement, the actor went on to declare, “We’ve reached a state now where it’s, ‘You shouldn’t notice,'” which threw even more salt on the wound. Why are you observing that guy who intends to harm your family, has a bomb, a beard, and is a Muslim? This is unlike any other country in the world.
Freeman continued, “We give ourselves a hard time in this country in a sort of mea culpa way,” adding that people in Ghana “might not love” if their traffic wardens were Welsh. But people wouldn’t come if we were that bigoted. Extremely easy. The tone changed drastically when he started discussing music, even though this is another comment that screams stupidity.
“I come from a time when not every rap record was ‘n—-‘ this and ‘n—-‘ that. There was an earlier hip-hop sensibility that was socially and morally conscious, when the message was, ‘Don’t call people n—-.'” However, it’s suddenly n—-, n—-, n—-, and neither politically nor artistically nor socially amusing. It truly isn’t to my taste.
For a lot of folks, and rightfully so, this is where Freeman crossed the line. With his experience, he had no cause to bring up the extremely insulting slur, and it is an issue he should never have brought up. And for those who were formerly supporters of Freeman, this comment has left them with a bad taste in their mouths.
Even though Martin Freeman first stated these statements in 2008, they have continued to come up whenever he makes another potentially contentious statement—often in the form of offensive jokes or the promotion of a new project. Most recently, the original statements resurfaced because of a widely shared TikTok post by user @htmljones, who claimed that the actor, along with Lana Del Rey and Harry Styles, was racist.
Many Freeman supporters responded to the video with variants of “MARTIN FREEMAN NOOO,” “NOT MARTIN FREEMAN,” and simply “FREEMAAAAAAN,” followed by numerous sobbing emojis in amazement over this comment.
Although this TikTok reopened the conversation, it seems that the purpose is to make light of the situation or at the very least stir things up. Other celebrities, such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, and Benedict Cumberbatch, have been exposed in videos made by the user.
Furthermore, they state in the comments that “Bilbo joined the EDL,” a reference to the English Defence League, a far-right political organization in the UK that is hostile to Islam. Nothing about this is true. Actually, he considers himself more of a socialist and belongs to the more liberal Labour Party.
