19-year-old with Tourette’s explains truth about whether tics reflect what they actually think

A teenager with Tourette's Syndrome has revealed whether tics can actually be indicative of how they really feel.

The health condition came under the microscope earlier this year when Tourette's campaigner John Davidson could be heard shouting a racial slur at the BAFTAs while Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were presenting an award on stage.

Davidson would end up voluntarily leaving the room after the incident, as controversy ensued.

A lot of criticism was aimed at the BAFTAs and BBC for how they handled the incident, as the latter left the slur in their broadcast despite censoring a speech about supporting Palestine.

Lindo would eventually have a standing ovation at the NAACP Image Awards, as many big names questioned if Davidson meant any harm with his tics.

John Davidson made headlines last month after one of his tics at the BAFTAs was a racial slur (Dominic Lipinski/Getty Images)

While Davidson apologised for any ‘pain, upset and misunderstanding’ that his syndrome may have caused, he did not apologise for having Tourette's.

Now, Grace Cope, a 19-year-old with the same health condition, has opened up on how it's like to have tics at inconvenient times.

Speaking to LADbible, she explained that Tourette's is 'a neurological disorder characterised by tics that can be motor or vocal', adding that to have the condition, you must 'have at least two motor ticks and one vocal tick'.

Opening up on her own experience, she was asked if tics can reflect what you really think.

Grace answered: "For the most part, no. Our tics can be situational."

Speaking to the crew, she explained: "Like earlier, when you when you were itching your nose, I saw that. My brain processed it. I didn't think about you itch your nose. I saw it and it came out. I didn't know I was going to say it."

But the teenager admitted that 'if you know certain qualities about a person, it might reflect that person or thing', though she added that this isn't always the case as 'it doesn't mean we don't tick what we always think'.

She did admit: "I can't say that it's not always something that we don't think because people think things all the time, they just don't say them. We just have the disadvantage sometimes where it does fly out of our mouths."

Grace said that tics usually aren't reflective of what someone thinks (YouTube/LADbible)

Grace also revealed that there is a genetic component involved in Tourette's.

"It's hereditary - your parents will normally carry a gene, like one or the other. I have ticks on both sides of my family, so someone in my dad's family has it and also in my mum's, so thanks for that," she joked.

The teen said that if she wanted kids in the future, there's a '50/50 chance' they would also have Tourette's.

This was also confirmed by John Hopkins Medicine, who say: "A parent with TD (Tourette's Disorder) or the gene for TD has a 1 in 2 chance to pass the gene on to each child.

"In up to 1 in 20 children with TD, the disorder is not caused by genes."