British Academy Television Awards 2007
Encyclopedia
The 2007 British Academy Television Awards
British Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

were held on Sunday 20 May at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...

 Theatre in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. They were broadcast live on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. The nominations were announced on 11 April 2007.

Winners and nominees

Winners in bold.
  • Best Actor
    • Jim Broadbent
      Jim Broadbent
      James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...

       — Longford
      Longford (film)
      Longford is a 2006 drama television film directed by Tom Hooper and written by Peter Morgan.The film centres on Labour Party peer Lord Longford and his campaign for the parole of Moors Murderer Myra Hindley....

      (Channel 4
      Channel 4
      Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

      )
    • Andy Serkis
      Andy Serkis
      Andrew Clement G. "Andy" Serkis is an English actor, director and author. He is popularly known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he earned several award nominations, including the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Two Towers...

       — Longford (Channel 4)
    • Michael Sheen
      Michael Sheen
      Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...

       — Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
      Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
      Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the English comic actor Kenneth Williams, based on Williams' own diaries...

      (BBC Four
      BBC Four
      BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

      )
    • John Simm
      John Simm
      John Simm is an English stage and screen actor. In recent years he is best known for his roles as Sam Tyler in the detective drama Life on Mars and as The Master in the revival of the science fiction series Doctor Who, but he has also starred in many highly acclaimed award-winning television...

       — Life on Mars
      Life on Mars (TV series)
      Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....

      (BBC One
      BBC One
      BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

      )

  • Best Actress
    • Victoria Wood
      Victoria Wood
      Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...

       — Housewife, 49
      Housewife, 49
      Housewife, 49 was a 2006 television drama based on the wartime diaries of Nella Last. Written by and starring English actress and comedian Victoria Wood, it follows the experiences of an ordinary housewife and mother in the Northern English town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria during the Second World...

      (ITV
      ITV
      ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

      )
    • Anne-Marie Duff
      Anne-Marie Duff
      Anne-Marie Duff is an English actress best known for playing Fiona Gallagher in Shameless, and Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen.-Early life:...

       — The Virgin Queen (BBC One)
    • Samantha Morton
      Samantha Morton
      Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes...

       — Longford (Channel 4)
    • Ruth Wilson
      Ruth Wilson (actress)
      Ruth Wilson is an English actress, perhaps best known for her performance in the title role of Jane Eyre.-Early life and education:...

       — Jane Eyre
      Jane Eyre
      Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...

      (BBC One)

  • Best Comedy Performance
    • Ricky Gervais
      Ricky Gervais
      Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...

       — Extras
      Extras (TV series)
      Extras is a British sitcom about extras working on TV and film sets and in theatre. The series was co-produced by the BBC and HBO, and is created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, both of whom also star in it...

      (BBC Two
      BBC Two
      BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

      )
    • Dawn French — The Vicar of Dibley
      The Vicar of Dibley
      The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...

      (BBC One)
    • Stephen Merchant
      Stephen Merchant
      Stephen James Merchant is an English writer, director, radio presenter, comedian, and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, as the co-writer and co-director of the popular British sitcom The Office, as the co-writer, co-director and a co-star of Extras, and as the...

       — Extras
      Extras (TV series)
      Extras is a British sitcom about extras working on TV and film sets and in theatre. The series was co-produced by the BBC and HBO, and is created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, both of whom also star in it...

      (BBC Two)
    • Liz Smith
      Liz Smith (actress)
      Liz Smith, MBE is a British actress, best-known for her roles in the sitcoms The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family. She also appeared in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.-Early life:...

       — The Royle Family: Queen of Sheba
      The Royle Family
      The Royle Family is a popular, BAFTA award-winning television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards...

      (BBC One)

  • Best Comedy Programme
    • That Mitchell and Webb Look
      That Mitchell and Webb Look
      That Mitchell and Webb Look is a British television sketch show starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Shown on BBC Two since 2006, its first two series were directed by David Kerr, who also directed Mitchell and Webb's previous television sketch show The Mitchell and Webb Situation, whereas...

      (BBC Two)
    • Little Miss Jocelyn
      Little Miss Jocelyn
      Little Miss Jocelyn is a British TV sketch comedy written by and starring Jocelyn Jee Esien. The show is made up of studio sketches and hidden camera footage in which unsuspecting members of the public become part of a sketch.-History:...

      (BBC Three
      BBC Three
      BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent...

      )
    • The Catherine Tate Show
      The Catherine Tate Show
      The Catherine Tate Show is a British television sketch comedy written by Catherine Tate and Aschlin Ditta. Tate also stars in all but one of the show's sketches, which feature a wide range of characters. The Catherine Tate Show airs on BBC Two and is shown worldwide through the BBC...

      (BBC Two)
    • Little Britain Abroad
      Little Britain
      Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas...

      (BBC One)

  • Best Continuing Drama
    • Casualty
      Casualty (TV series)
      Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

      (BBC One)
    • Coronation Street
      Coronation Street
      Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

      (ITV)
    • EastEnders
      EastEnders
      EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

      (BBC One)
    • Emmerdale
      Emmerdale
      Emmerdale, is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale , a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale was first broadcast on 16 October 1972...

      (ITV)

  • Best Drama Serial
    • See No Evil: The Moors Murders (ITV)
    • Low Winter Sun (Channel 4)
    • Prime Suspect: The Final Act (ITV)
    • The Virgin Queen (Channel 4)

  • Best Drama Series
    • The Street (BBC)
    • Life on Mars (BBC One)
    • Sugar Rush
      Sugar Rush (TV series)
      Sugar Rush is an Emmy Award–winning British television comedy drama series developed by Shine Limited and broadcast by Channel 4, based on the Julie Burchill novel of the same name...

      (Channel 4)
    • Shameless (Channel 4)

  • Best Entertainment Performance
    • Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
      Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
      Friday Night with Jonathan Ross was a British comedy chat show presented by Jonathan Ross. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 November 2001. The programme featured Ross's take on current topics of conversation, guest interviews and live music from both a guest music group and the house band...

      (BBC One)
    • QI
      QI
      QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...

      (BBC Two)
    • Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV)
    • Have I Got News for You
      Have I Got News for You
      Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...

      (BBC One)

  • Best Entertainment Programme
    • The X Factor
      The X Factor (UK)
      The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent. Created by Simon Cowell, it began in September 2004 and is contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. It is the originator of the international X Factor franchise. The seven series of the show to date...

      (ITV)
    • Dancing on Ice
      Dancing on Ice
      Dancing on Ice is a British television show co-hosted by Christine Bleakley and Philip Schofield, in which celebrities and their professional partners figure skate in front of a panel of judges. The format, devised by LWT and Granada Television, has been a prime-time hit in eight different...

      (ITV)
    • Derren Brown
      Derren Brown
      Derren Victor Brown is a British illusionist, mentalist, painter, writer and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in television specials, stage productions and British television series such as Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat...

      : The Heist (Channel 4)
    • How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
      How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
      How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? was a British television talent series, that was broadcast on Saturday evenings on BBC One between 29 July and 16 September 2006. It documented the search for a new, undiscovered musical theatre performer to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the 2006 Andrew...

      (BBC One)

  • Best Factual Series
    • Ross Kemp on Gangs
      Ross Kemp on Gangs
      Ross Kemp on Gangs is a BAFTA award-winning documentary series shown on Sky1 and later repeated on Sky3. On 20 May 2007 the series won a BAFTA award for best factual series...

      (Sky One
      Sky One
      Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...

      )
    • Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive
      Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive
      Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive is a 2006 two-part television documentary directed by Ross Wilson and featuring British actor and comedian Stephen Fry. It explores the effects of living with bipolar disorder, based on the experiences of Fry, other celebrities and members of the...

      (BBC Two)
    • Tribe (BBC
      BBC
      The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

      )
    • Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC)

  • Best Features
    • The Choir
      Gareth Malone
      Gareth Malone is a British choirmaster and broadcaster, self-described as an "animateur, presenter and populariser of choral singing"...

      (BBC Two)
    • The Apprentice
      The Apprentice (UK)
      The Apprentice is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women compete for the chance to win a £100,000-a-year job as an apprentice to the British business magnate Lord Sugar in series one to six...

      (BBC)
    • Dragons' Den
      Dragons' Den
      Dragons' Den is a series of reality television programmes featuring entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. The show originated in Japan as "Manē no Tora"...

      (BBC Two)
    • The F-Word
      The F-Word
      The F Word is a British food magazine and cooking show featuring chef Gordon Ramsay. The programme covers a wide range of topics, from recipes to food preparation and celebrity food fads. The programme is made by Optomen Television and aired weekly on Channel 4...

      (Channel 4)

  • Best News Coverage
    • Granada Reports
      Granada Reports
      Granada Reports is the flagship regional news programme of ITV franchisee Granada, presented by Tony Morris and Lucy Meacock, and serving the North West of England and the Isle of Man....

      Morecambe Bay
      Morecambe Bay
      Morecambe Bay is a large bay in northwest England, nearly due east of the Isle of Man and just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 310 km².-Natural features:The rivers Leven,...

       (ITV)
    • BBC Ten O'Clock News — Terrorism plot at Heathrow
    • Channel 4 News
      Channel 4 News
      Channel 4 News is the news division of British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since the broadcaster's launch in 1982.-Channel 4 News:...

      — News from Iran
    • ITV Evening News — the Israel/Lebanon crisis

  • Best Single Documentary
    • Evicted (BBC One)
    • Breaking Up With The Joneses (Channel 4)
    • 9/11: The Falling Man (Channel 4)
    • Rain In My Heart (BBC Two)

  • Best Single Drama
    • Housewife, 49
      Housewife, 49
      Housewife, 49 was a 2006 television drama based on the wartime diaries of Nella Last. Written by and starring English actress and comedian Victoria Wood, it follows the experiences of an ordinary housewife and mother in the Northern English town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria during the Second World...

      (ITV)
    • Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
      Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
      Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the English comic actor Kenneth Williams, based on Williams' own diaries...

      (BBC Four)
    • Longford (Channel 4)
    • The Road To Guantanamo
      The Road to Guantanamo
      The Road to Guantanamo, alternatively The Road to Guantánamo, is a British 2006 docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees at a detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba...

      (Channel 4)

  • Best Situation Comedy
    • The Royle Family
      The Royle Family
      The Royle Family is a popular, BAFTA award-winning television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards...

      (BBC)
    • Green Wing
      Green Wing
      Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony, led by Victoria Pile, and stars Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt....

      (Channel 4)
    • The IT Crowd
      The IT Crowd
      The IT Crowd is a British sitcom by Channel 4, written by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry...

      (Channel 4)
    • Pulling
      Pulling
      Pulling is a BBC comedy series, produced by Silver River Productions and broadcast on BBC Three, about three single female friends who live in Penge, south-east London...

      (BBC Three)

  • Best Specialist Factual
    • Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand (Channel 4)
    • Planet Earth
      Planet Earth (TV series)
      Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...

      (BBC)
    • Munich: Mossad's Revenge
      Munich: Mossad's Revenge
      Munich: Mossad's Revenge is a documentary produced by Atlantic Productions and aired on Channel 4 in Britain concerning Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli assassination campaign that was organized in response to the Munich Massacre...

      (Channel 4)
    • Simon Schama's Power of Art
      Simon Schama's Power of Art
      Power of Art is a BBC documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama. The series was broadcast in October and November 2006 on BBC2...

      (BBC Two)

  • Best Sport
    • F1
      Formula One
      Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

      : Hungarian Grand Prix
      2006 Hungarian Grand Prix
      The 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on August 6, 2006 at the Hungaroring, Budapest. It was the 13th race of the 2006 Formula One season...

       — Jenson Button
      Jenson Button
      Jenson Alexander Lyons Button MBE is a British Formula One driver currently signed to McLaren. He was the 2009 World Drivers' Champion.Button began karting at the age of eight and achieved early success, before progressing to car racing in the British Formula Ford Championship and the British...

      's First Win (ITV)
    • The Boat Race
      The Boat Race
      The event generally known as "The Boat Race" is a rowing race in England between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between competing eights each spring on the River Thames in London. It takes place generally on the last Saturday of March or the first...

      (ITV)
    • Cricket
      Cricket
      Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

       on Five (Five)
    • Winter Olympics
      Winter Olympic Games
      The Winter Olympic Games is a sporting event, which occurs every four years. The first celebration of the Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The original sports were alpine and cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating...

      (BBC Two)

  • Interactivity
    • Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (Sky One)
    • Dispatches - War Torn: Stories of Separation
      Dispatches (TV series)
      Dispatches is the British television current affairs documentary series on Channel 4, first transmitted in 1987. The programme covers issues about British society, politics, health, religion, international current affairs and the environment, usually featuring a mole in an organisation.-Awards:*...

      (Channel 4)
    • Meltdown and the Big Climate Experiment (BBC Four)
    • The Secret Policeman's Ball (Channel 4)

  • International
    • Entourage
      Entourage (TV series)
      Entourage is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on HBO on July 18, 2004 and concluded on September 11, 2011, after eight seasons...

      (ITV2
      ITV2
      ITV2 is a 24 hour, free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998, and is available on digital television via satellite, cable, IPTV and terrestrial platforms. The channel has the...

      )
    • House
      House (TV series)
      House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

      (Five)
    • Lost
      Lost (TV series)
      Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...

      (Sky One)
    • My Name Is Earl
      My Name Is Earl
      My Name Is Earl is an American television comedy series created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States...

      (Channel 4)

  • Pioneer Audience Award
    • Life on Mars (BBC One)
    • The Royle Family: Queen of Sheba (BBC One)
    • Dragons' Den (BBC Two)
    • The Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special
      The Vicar of Dibley
      The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...

      (BBC One)
    • Planet Earth (BBC One)
    • Celebrity Big Brother
      Celebrity Big Brother 2007 (UK)
      Celebrity Big Brother 2007 was the highly controversial fifth series of the United Kingdom reality television series Celebrity Big Brother, a spin-off of Big Brother. The series was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK , and involved a number of celebrities referred to as 'housemates', who live in the...

      (Channel 4)

  • Special Award
    • Winner: Andy Harries
      Andy Harries
      Andrew D. M. Harries is a British television and film producer. After graduating from Hull University in the 1970s, Harries began his television career on the Granada Television current affairs series World in Action, before moving on to freelance work...


  • Fellowship Award
    • Winner: Richard Curtis
      Richard Curtis
      Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...


Controversy

When presenting Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, radio presenter, producer, musician, and writer.Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator...

 with the award for best comedy performance Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...

 referred to her cousin as a "Jew with a harelip". Gareth Davies, the Chief Executive of the Cleft Lip and Palate Association
Cleft Lip and Palate Association
The Cleft Lip and Palate Association also known as CLAPA is a charity registered in England and is the only UK-wide voluntary organisation specifically helping those with, and affected by, cleft lip and palate....

 (CLAPA) wrote to BAFTA to express his "serious disappointment" at the incident and said that "many people found the old-fashioned term "harelip" highly offensive and that "making the condition the subject of a cheap joke was simply hurtful"

Rivers later said that she was extremely sorry for any offence caused and this had certainly not been her intention. Amanda Berry, BAFTA Chief Executive, stated that the Academy would "never set out to offend nor make fun of anyone". CLAPA said they were pleased to receive the apologies but is also aware that too many people are still ill-informed about what cleft lip and palate is and what it is not. They added that this ignorance can often feed into prejudice and the media and those in the public eye have a key role in helping the association to de-stigmatise the condition.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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