A rock music legend is speaking up over a “major mistake” in his career.
David Byrne said in a new interview that he was “self-cancelled” for wearing Blackface in a promo skit for Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film “Stop Making Sense.” Byrne appeared in the video as multiple characters, including some who were people of color.
“Sometimes people are cancelled if they’ve done something way in the past, 20, 30 years ago [though, and] I feel like human beings can change,” Byrne told “The Louis Theroux Podast” on Tuesday. “We can learn from our mistakes [so] let’s look at what they’ve done since then. If they made a mistake and it’s not this really horrible thing. Then let’s see if they’ve kind of made amends and how they’ve behaved since then, because maybe that was just a mistake.”
“The thing with the internet is you can dredge up the past on everybody and embarrass almost anybody by something they’ve done in the past,” he continued. “Some years ago, […] I realized, ‘Oh god, look, I’m in Blackface’. It was not done as a parody or caricature or anything like, but that was one of the characters, and I realized I would never do that now.”
Byrne has expressed regret about the use of Blackface multiple times, calling it a “major mistake in judgement” back in 2020.
“I just about forgotten about this skit and I’m grateful that it has been brought to my attention,” he said at the time, adding that it “showed a lack of real understanding.”
Byrne said he told filmmaker Spike Lee that he was going to speak about it publicly at the time, describing himself as “self-cancelled.” Lee directed “David Byrne’s American Utopia” concert film, released in 2020 from a recording of Byrne’s Broadway show.
“I called up Spike Lee and said, ‘I did this. I just want you to want you to know that I’m going to announce that I did this”. And he said, ‘David, I know you. People know you. Don’t worry about it,’” Byrne told Louis Theroux’s podcast. “But at the same time, there were a few organizations that did cancel me… there was a speaking engagement that said we can’t have you talk. That was a few years ago.”
Byrne also spoke about the skit, racism and his efforts to change in a 2023 interview with The New York Times.
“As much as I might like to deny it, I harbored a lot of racial biases” in youth,” Byrne told the newspaper. “I realized I may rationally say that I’m not racist, but I have implicit biases that I would like to deny, but they’re there.”
“Overcoming those is more difficult than just rationally saying, ‘Oh, no, that’s not right’. Those beliefs and biases, whether they’re about race or women’s rights or whatever they might be, those things can take a long time to fundamentally change within us.”
Byrne, 73, is best known for his work with the Talking Heads on songs like “Burning Down the House,” “Psycho Killer,” “Once in a Lifetime,” “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” and a cover of “Take Me to the River.” He has also released more than a dozen solo albums, collaborative works, film soundtracks and live albums, including the recent “Who is the Sky?” with Ghost Train Orchestra.
Byrne has won a Grammy Award, an Oscar and a Special Tony Award, plus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Talking Heads. He continues to perform today, including a Syracuse concert in September and an upcoming slot at Coachella in 2026.
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