Lord Sugar has been accused of “casual homophobia” after ‘gay elephant’ jibe.
After Piers Morgan asked his Twitter following whether elephants could be gay, but Alan Sugar couldn’t help but respond. His response missed the mark, however, and was met with condemnation from some followers.
Piers Morgan tweeted, “Genuine question: are there gay elephants?” to which the Apprentice star responded in front of his 5.3 million followers, “Good question they have good memory, That is why they followed you when you went on Safari in South Africa”
RT Genuine question: are there gay elephants? @piersmorgan Good question they have good memory, That is why they followed you when you went on Safari in South Africa https://t.co/O1DC9SDALO
— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) April 24, 2019
While some were offended by the remark, calling the tweet an example of ‘casual homophobia’ others commented on the laziness of the joke, with one writing, “by all means attempt a gay joke, we wont be offended as long as its witty or clever. This offends me simply because its [sic] beyond dull”.
by all means attempt a gay joke, we wont be offended as long as its witty or clever. This offends me simply because its beyond dull
— Shaun bullard (@Shaunbullard2) April 25, 2019
Others weren’t so impressed with the tweet, calling the businessman out on what they called “casual homophobia”.
Bit of casual homophobia 🙈
— Chris McG (@chrismcg1980) April 25, 2019
Bit of casual homophobia in the middle of the night?
— Dave (@daveqpr85) April 25, 2019
This isn’t the first time Sugar has been accused of homophobia, last year he was slammed after saying that he had had enough “puffs” in his boardroom. Twitter users were quick to call out the Tweet as homophobic and bigoted living the billionaire businessman having to explain that the tweet was “a bloody joke” and that puffs was not a homophobic slur.