Jason Manford has been put on blast by fellow parents for advising them to play a "cruel" April Fool's Day coronavirus prank on his children.
The father-of-six yesterday tweeted what he thought was a hilarious joke idea, but was met with some harsh critics in the replies section.
The comic shared a snap of an edited news screenshot which shows Boris Johnson with a breaking news tag that read: "Schools to reopen tomorrow."
Tweeting the picture out to his 317k followers, he wrote: "It's April Fools Day tomorrow, if you wanted to use this on your children I'm not stopping you!"
Soon after he released his tweet into the world, some parents seemed to have missed the joke.
One person wrote: "It's not funny, though. It's at best unkind and at worst cruel. 'lol'."
Another penned: "Think that would devastate a lot of kids who are missing their friends. Not something I’ll be doing anyway."
While a third critiqued: "Lots of people will now do this and cause real damage to children's me talk health in these times."
But Jason hit out at the negative comments, writing: "Well don’t do it then. Nobody is forcing you to. Be a parent, assess your own child’s sense of humour, mental state and maturity level and then decide if this will be funny to them.
"I tried it on 2 of mine but decided the others wouldn’t appreciate it. It’s not hard."
Jason is currently holed up at home as he self-isolates with his family.
It comes as he offered some helpful advice to parents with young children amid growing concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
The 38-year-old comic has joined the long list of celebs using their social media platform to spread awareness for health tips during the worrying outbreak.
And Jason took to Twitter to share his wisdom with fellow parents and carers, as he discovered a useful hand washing tip to make sure kids scrub their mitts.
The father-of-four shared a snap of his kids’ hands, each with a unique drawing of either a heart or a star.
He wrote: “Quick one before I go. Little idea. Draw something on your children’s hands to encourage them to keep washing. ‘By the end of the day, I want that heart to have disappeared!’”
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