"Boys don’t wear princess dresses" - When F1 legend Lewis Hamilton received backlash for controversial exchange with nephew

Being one of the most famous athletes and a legend in the world of racing, Lewis Hamilton has a lot of eyeballs on him. This also means that many might take some of his comments in a negative light. In his career so far as an extremely successful F1 driver, the Briton has faced several controversies and backlashes.

Back in 2017, when Hamilton was 32 years old and only had three world championships to his name, he posted a Snapchat video of his young nephew wearing a blue and pink dress as they were visiting Disneyland. The video was captioned:

“I’m so sad right now. Look at my nephew”

In the video, Hamilton and his nephew talked about how the latter wanted a dress for Christmas. At the end of the video, the Briton was heard shouting:

“Boys don’t wear princess dresses!”

Many were quite upset with Lewis Hamilton after the controversial video was posted. They criticized the F1 driver for calling out his young nephew for not following gender norms. People from the LGBTQ community flooded social media platforms with comments on the video.

The video was subsequently taken down by the Briton and he tweeted an apology saying:

"Yesterday I was playing around with my nephew and realised that my words were inappropriate so I removed the post. I meant no harm and did not mean to offend anyone at all. I love that my nephew feels free to express himself as we all should. My deepest apologies for my behaviour as I realise it is really not acceptable for anyone, no matter where you are from, to marginalise or stereotype anyone."

Post the controversial incident, Lewis Hamilton did a fashion shoot for GQ where he wore a kilt in collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger. His shoot was aimed at wanting to make amends for his comments in the video.

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Sebastian Vettel will return to F1, feels Lewis Hamilton

After driving in F1 for 15 years and winning four world titles, Sebastian Vettel finally retired at the end of the 2022 season. All drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, spoke about the legendary German driver and appreciated him wholeheartedly.

During the drivers' press conference in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton reminisced about several battles between him and Vettel on the track. He also appeared quite sure that the German would return to the sport after a few years, just like Fernando Alonso and even Michael Schumacher did in their careers.

Lewis Hamilton said:

"I think we always had such great, great battles, honestly. And I was just sitting here thinking most drivers are coming back, like he’s come back [pointing at Fernando Alonso next to him]. You’re probably going to come back [referring to Vettel]."

After countless wheel-to-wheel battles, both drivers have become good friends off-track and share several interests together.