Boy George defends Lewis Hamilton over princess video

‘People make mistakes and that's how they learn!’

Lewis Hamilton has not yet signed a new contract with Mercedes, alerting McLaren to his avalability (Getty)

Boy George has come to the defence of Lewis Hamilton after the Formula 1 champion publicly shamed his young nephew for wearing a princess costume.

The British chart-topper took to Twitter to express his support for Hamilton after he was widely vilified and ridiculed online for his ignorant remarks which he later publicly apologised for.

“Let's all give @LewisHamilton a break now,” Boy George wrote.

“Far worse is said everyday by far worse people with far less style! Move. People make mistakes and that's how they learn!”

The singer’s supportive message comes after Hamilton shared a video with his 5.7m followers on Instagram of his nephew wearing a princess costume.

The video was captioned with the embarrassed monkey emoji and the racer can be heard shouting at his young relative, “boys don’t wear princess dresses” after saying “I’m so sad right now, look at my nephew.”

The 32-year-old was quickly lambasted for his controversial remarks, leading some fans to subsequently criticise Boy George for supporting him.

“I want to agree, but his words brings shame to the entire racing community which already struggles with accepting women and diff. identities,” wrote one user, to which the singer replied by describing the reaction as “overly dramatic”.

“The sad thing is that LH is a 32-year-old man that had to have it pointed out to him by someone else that what he posted was wrong and hurtful and should be taken down,” added another user.

“He should think about taking a social media break until he gets a bit smarter and wiser.”

The multi-millionaire issued an apology shortly after on Twitter, claiming that he “meant no harm”.

“I love that my nephew feels free to express himself as we all should,” he said.