The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has issued a statement apologizing for his actions after he was caught on camera kissing a little boy on the lips and instructing him to “suck my tongue.”
The bizarre incident occurred during an event in which 100 young M3M Foundation students paid a visit to the spiritual leader at his temple in Dharamshala.
Gyatso is the holiest figure in the Tibetan Buddhist faith, and has held the role since 1950. The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since Tibet was annexed by China in 1959, having issued a statement revealing he and the Tibetan government were coerced into agreeing to the action.
JUST IN: The Dalai Lama affectionately plants a kiss on the lips of a young Indian boy. "Suck my tongue." pic.twitter.com/3vsHcQOa7U
— The Herald Post (@TheHeraldPostUS) April 9, 2023
In a video that has since gone viral, one young boy approached a microphone at the Dalai Lama’s event and asked, “Can I hug you?”
Gyatso, 87, then told the boy to come up to the platform and said “first here,” instructing the child to kiss and hug him.
While holding the young child, the Dalai Lama said “I think here also,” and proceeded to kiss the little boy on the lips. “And suck my tongue,” the spiritual leader then said as he stuck out is tongue.
Peter Brady / Flickr
The two then placed their foreheads together as the boy stuck out his tongue.
Some have called the spiritual leader’s behavior “inappropriate,” “scandalous,” and “disgusting” and have called for the Dalai Lama to apologize.
“A video clip has been circulating that shows a recent meeting when a young boy asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama if he could give him a hug. His Holiness wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused,” the Twitter account for the Dalai Lama wrote in response.
— Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama) April 10, 2023
“His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident,” the account added.
The Tibetan leader had once accused 45th President Donald Trump of lacking “moral principle” during a television interview in 2019 and slammed the then-president’s use of the phrase “America First.”
The Dalai Lama has the nerve to say Trump has "a lack of moral principle"
Meanwhile he's making sexual advances on little boys in public
Imagine what he does in private pic.twitter.com/KCve6GfulV
— Flawd TV (@FlawdTV) April 10, 2023
“One day he says something, another day he says something, but I think lack of moral principle,” the Dalai Lama said of President Trump.
“When he become president, he expressed, ‘America first.’ That is wrong,” the Dalai Lama said. “America, they should take the global responsibility.”
