Lewis Hamilton Is Cancelled After Shaming His Nephew For Wearing A Princess Dress At Christmas

27 December 2017, 11:09 | Updated: 27 December 2017, 11:28

Lewis Hamilton and his nephew
Picture: @lewishamilton
Woodrow Whyte

By Woodrow Whyte

The racing driving has been forced to apologise but people still aren't happy for this very good reason.

Christmas traditions we like: roast dinners, receiving presents and watching crap films with the family. Christmas traditions we don’t like: Christmas cake, giving presents and casual bigotry from extended family members.

Sounds like at least one of those happened on Christmas day at Formula 1 racing driver Lewis Hamilton’s home this year.

Hamilton is facing a huge online backlash after posting a video on his Instagram in which he confronts his young nephew for wearing a Disney princess costume on Christmas Day. In the video, the four-time world champion says to his nephew, who is obviously overjoyed with his costume, “I'm so sad right now - look at my nephew." The camera then cuts to the child in this (fabulous) costume and Lewis asks “Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is this what you got for Christmas? Why did you ask for this for Christmas? Boys don’t wear Christmas dresses.”

It wasn’t long before people started calling him out for shaming his nephew in such a public way.

We totally agree.

Lewis responded the next day apologising for his comments, claiming that, "I love that my nephew feels free to express himself as we all should."

Ok then.

Except some people thought his apology rang hollow, considering he was still liking tweets from people saying he had done nothing wrong.

Lewis probably thought he was having an innocent joke with his nephew. But by uploading the video to his Instagram, he revealed how tone-deaf he appears to be when it comes to the toxic effects that enforcing gender stereotypes can have on young children.

As many people have noted in response to the video, queer kids face a lot of hostility while exploring their identities and are picked out or targeted for not conforming to what it is expected that a boy or girl should do or be. This undermines their self-esteem and forces them to feel shame for being who they are. This can be deeply traumatising and have serious consequences later in life.

There are some people who feel that the reaction to Lewis' video has been over-exaggerated and, while that might be the case, we hope the experience has taught Lewis and others how harmful to children those comments can be, even if you think they are light-hearted.

Also, perhaps Lewis should think twice about his own wardrobe before commenting on others.

Amen.