Key Takeaways
- Miriam Margolyes questioned Black TV host Andi Peters about his ancestry on This Morning, wrongly assumed he was biracial, and called him “high yella,” a derogatory colorist term.
- Peters corrected the Harry Potter actress, saying that both his parents are Black, while producers reportedly grew nervous as she continued discussing his complexion.
- Margolyes similarly questioned Egyptian-Australian host Waleed Aly’s racial identity in 2024, while the franchise now faces racist threats against Paapa Essiedu over his casting as Severus Snape.
Harry Potter actress Miriam Margolyes is facing backlash after making racist comments about Black television host Andi Peters’ skin color and ancestry during a live appearance on This Morning—including assuming he was biracial and describing him with a derogatory term historically used for light-skinned Black people.
According to The Huffington Post, Margolyes was appearing on the ITV program to promote her new book, Miriam’s Full English, when she abruptly turned a conversation about accents into questions about Peters’ racial identity. “What accent would be normal for you? What are you?” she asked. After Peters responded, “What am I?”
Margolyes answered with an assumption: “Well, you’re a mix, aren’t you? You’ve got a Black daddy and a white mummy?”
Peters corrected her: “No, no, both my parents are Black.”
But Margolyes did not leave the subject there. She continued focusing on his complexion and eventually described Peters using “high yella,” explaining it as an American expression for someone who “isn’t deeply Black.”
The term “high yella” or “high yellow” has a long history in the United States as a racial and colorist label for lighter-skinned Black people and is, today, classified as dated, offensive, and disparaging.
Peters initially responded with humor, joking that perhaps the show’s makeup department had made him “a lighter shade than normal.” The tone changed when he revealed that producers were reacting in his earpiece. “They’re getting nervous now,” Peters said.
Margolyes pressed forward. “Don’t be nervous,” she replied. “We welcome everybody. And that’s what I want to write about in my book!”
Margolyes has publicly questioned another person’s racial identity in strikingly similar terms before. During a 2024 appearance on Australia’s The Project, Margolyes turned to Egyptian-Australian host Waleed Aly and asked, “What are you by the way? You’re sort of brown?”
Aly laughed uncomfortably before explaining that he is Egyptian. At the end of the segment, he acknowledged how far the interview had veered, telling viewers, “I think it’s safe to say that conversation did not go as predicted.”
Margolyes, 85, played Professor Pomona Sprout in the original Harry Potter films.
Her latest remarks arrive at a particularly charged moment for the franchise, as another actor associated with the Wizarding World has been confronting racism from the opposite direction.
Paapa Essiedu, the Black British actor cast as Severus Snape in HBO’s forthcoming Harry Potter adaptation, recently revealed that racist hostility over his casting has escalated into death threats. “I’m going to come to your house and kill you,” Essiedu recalled one message saying.
He has nevertheless vowed not to be intimidated out of the role Alan Rickman originated onscreen in 2001.
Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy opposite Rickman, previously rejected attempts to dress up the attacks on Essiedu as ordinary casting criticism. “I’ve seen some people online who are being rude about him,” Isaacs said. “What they’re being is racist.”
