Duncan Bannatyne became embroiled in an unusual online argument after a 12-year-old budding entrepreneur asked him for business advice.
The former Dragon’s Den judge broadcasted a tweet from 12-year-old Rocco Rose to his 770,000 followers, which he branded “rude”.
Mr Bannatyne labelled the tweet “rude” as it accordingly 'demanded' he should have answered a previous tweet from Rocco.
Mr Bannatyne also directly responded to Rocco, asking him: “Who do you think you are?”
Rocco replied saying he had been polite, yet the 66-year-old appeared to believe otherwise and told another follower the “kid” was “demanding advice” and claimed the boy deleted an earlier “rude tweet”.
Following the exchange Rocco, from Darfield, South Yorkshire, told the Mail Online, he was “upset, ashamed and disappointed” with Mr Bannatyne’s reply.
“I was really excited to get a reply but then really disappointed with what it said.”
He explained he first tweeted the entrepreneur six months ago for business advice and Mr Bannatyne explained that he couldn’t help but encouraged the boy to “keep it up”, which Rocco says gave him “inspiration”.
Rocco claims perhaps Mr Bannatyne misinterpreted his tweet’s opening with “hey” as being rude, but told the paper he just meant hello.
“For the person I have been admiring all my life to send me that reply is really upsetting. I still admire and look up to him but I can’t believe he replied like that.”
Following the exchange, Rocco’s father Jason Rose also became embroiled in the row as he defended his son and asked Mr Bannatyne to apologise.
Things then escalated when Mr Rose seemed to suggest a charity boxing match to resolve the issue and announced he was going to the media, to which Mr Bannatyne accused him of being a “terrible example of a dad".
Mr Rose told the paper: “I was so angry he had been that rude because Rocco really looks up to him. Looking at Duncan Bannatyne and everything he has, he doesn’t need to be like that to people who admire him.”
A spokesperson for Mr Bannatyne told the Independent: “Duncan receives lots of business ideas on Twitter and can’t respond to them all” .
