“His Holiness wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends around the world, for any pain his words may have caused,” said a statement on his official Twitter account.
“His holiness often jokes with people he knows in an innocent and playful way, even in public and on camera. He regrets this incident,” the message added, according to the AFP news agency.
In a video that has gone viral, the 87-year-old Dalai Lama asks the boy “can you suck my tongue?” and then he sticks out his tongue, unleashing the hilarity of those present. The video was recorded on February 28, during an audience with the Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala in northern India, where the spiritual leader has lived in exile since the failure of the 1951 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
Some netizens called her attitude “disgusting” and “absolutely unhealthy”. In 2019, the Dalai Lama already had to apologize for saying that if a woman were to succeed him, she would have to be “attractive.” These comments, in an interview with the BBC, caused controversy.
The Dalai Lama is the representative of the movement for the autonomy of Tibet, but the international presence that he enjoyed when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 has declined partly because of his age but also because of his growing economic influence. and Chinese politics.
