Lewis Hamilton has apologised after being roundly criticised on social media for posting a video of his nephew wearing a princess dress – and mocking him for it.
In the video, which has now been deleted from his Instagram story, Hamilton addresses the camera by saying: "I’m so sad right now…look at my nephew."
The camera then turns to a small boy in a princess dress. ‘Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is this what you got for Christmas? Why did you ask for a princess dress for Christmas? Boys don’t wear princess dresses," Hamilton says.
After a social media backlash, he apologised on Twitter, saying that he "meant no harm" with the post.
The video was initially met by a furious response.
watching the lewis hamilton vid actually excruciating, that little boy was me at that age, and all i ever heard was… https://t.co/a9h3bG0xPY
How sad that an extraordinary sportsman like Lewis Hamilton feels the need to police his toddler nephew for wearing… https://t.co/Va0DqkDpbR
Cannot believe one of the worst dressed men of all time has the AUDACITY to open his damn mouth and comment on anyo… https://t.co/LAeg8HpkBk
People pointed out it was really fine for a boy to wear a princess dress.
"Boys don't wear princess dresses!" No Lewis Hamilton, you're right, boys don't. Boys should be aiming to be Queen… https://t.co/QdVs6uuVaj
@JustNabz Boys can wear them if they want! U are just setting up the next generation for a hateful, non-accepting, future🙄🙄🙄!!
Props to whoever bought the kid the dress though @LewisHamilton ... #goodparenting #takelessons
They called for him to apologise.
This is outrageous. @LewisHamilton should be ashamed of himself, picking on a child in public just for being differ… https://t.co/W14uOqbdU3
I hope @LewisHamilton properly thinks and apologises to his nephew for that video. Thinks about why it is so horrib… https://t.co/2MLXvU6WZ3
He eventually used Twitter to do so, writing: "I love that my nephew feels free to express himself as we all should."
Yesterday I was playing around with my nephew and realised that my words were inappropriate so I removed the post.… https://t.co/7ek2cUBPK2