Lord Sugar accused of homophobia over 'puffs' tweet

Lord Alan Sugar has found himself in hot water yet again after posting another controversial tweet. The 71-year-old The Apprentice star has been accused of homophobia after tweeting about ‘puffs.’

A fan jokingly tweeted a Photoshopped image of Sugar’s face on a box of sugar puffs with the caption ‘@LordSugar I found your next business venture.’

‘hah…I have enough puff s [sic] who come through my boardroom’ the entrepreneur replied.

Sugar appears to see the funny side of the cereal box image but his response could easily be interpreted as offensive and indeed homophobic.

While several twitter users noted that Sugar used the ‘puff’ not the word ‘poof’ – which can be used as a homophobic slur – many users did appear to take offence to the tweet.

One wrote that he ‘suspects’ Sugar did mean the term in an offensive way, while another said he was ‘disappointed’ with Sugar’s choice of words.

Several users also referred to the last time Sugar caused public outrage on Twitter, when he tweeted about the Senegal football team during the World Cup.

In a now deleted post, former Tottenham owner Sugar compared the team to salesmen on the beaches of Marbella, and super-imposed a sheet covered in sunglasses for sale with the team’s official photo. The caption stated: “I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella. Multi tasking resourceful chaps.”

In response to Sugar’s latest ‘puff’ tweet one user wrote ‘Remember that racist thing you tweeted about the Senegal football team?’ and encouraged him to delete the ‘puffs’ tweet. And another joked that users should ‘screenshot’ the tweet, predicting that the businessman will inevitably delete it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lord Sugar is not taking the criticism lightly and has already hit back with a flurry of rant-style tweets.

He has also replied to users that have come out in his support.

While he eventually did apologise for the Senegal football tweet, time will have to tell if he apologises for this latest Twitter debacle.

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