Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he was "wrong" for criticizing his nephew for wearing a princess dress in a 2017 video.
The 37-year-old Formula 1 superstar recently reflected on the "ignorant moment" in an interview with Vanity Fair, during which he told his nephew that "boys don’t wear princess dresses" in a video posted five years ago.
The video first surfaced on social media on Christmas Day via Hamilton's Instagram Stories, and he asked the youngster about his choice of attire - which was a purple-and-pink dress - and said: "Why did you ask for a princess dress for Christmas?"
"Because it’s pretty," Hamilton’s nephew replied joyfully while waving a pink wand, to which Hamilton replied: "Boys don’t wear princess dresses!"
The racing car driver's comments were widely criticized on social media at the time. In his conversation with Vanity Fair, Hamilton has opened up about the since-deleted video and acknowledged that his comments were "so stupid".
"I realized that a lot of my upbringing was coming out. I went with just an ignorant moment. And I straight away realized that that’s not actually how I feel deep inside," he said.
"I’m just not the kind of person that wants to ever hurt anybody," he told the outlet, adding, "And the idea that I could have hurt somebody through a stupid post or just from something I said, again through ignorance, just reminded me of how I had felt from the experiences that I had."
The experience he is referring to - he revealed elsewhere in the interview - was when he was racially abused as a child and physically attacked by a father-and-son duo, who he had never met before.
Hamilton stated that he had publicly apologized for his comments (in now-deleted tweets) and that he began to educate himself privately, saying: "And so then finding ways of not necessarily undoing it, but showing that community that I support them."
Hamilton is determined to unlearn his negative behaviors toward gender roles and masculinity and has since posed in a kilt for British Vogue in 2018 to "make amends" for his past comments.
The F1 star also bought his nephew a brand new Rapunzel princess dress during their 2018 visit to Disneyland Paris. He spoke about his relationship with the child and said that "it's crazy" that you have to "learn something" from a six-year-old.