Lewis Hamilton comes from a humble background but calling his childhood neighbourhood a slum offended the Stevenage Borough Council.
The seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton is one of the few examples in F1 that proves that talent often triumphs over money. From a humble background, Hamilton and his father had seen enough hardships before McLaren spotted him.
From there onwards, Hamilton only climbed up to Formula 1 and became the most successful F1 driver in history with 103 Grand Prix statistically wins and seven world titles.
P2! Some tough racing out there, it
wasn’t easy but we are taking away a good result. Thank you @MercedesAMGF1 for all the hard work this weekend. Let’s keep this momentum going for Mexico, see you all next week ~ pic.twitter.com/lJPfpj2WjM— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) October 24, 2022
The Briton owns his humble background and, over the years, has talked about his childhood. He also spoke about how he was discriminated against because of his skin colour, but he remained focused on his work.
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Lewis Hamilton offended Stevenage Council
In 2018, Hamilton won the BBC Personality of the year award. While talking about rising through complex finances to become a millionaire, Hamilton called his childhood neighbourhood a slum.
“It’s been a really long journey, a dream for us all, as a family, to do something different, to get out of the slums,” he said in 2018. These words got a strong response from his hometown.
The council of Stevenage Borough expressed that they were very disappointed by the comments of Hamilton. Moreover, they also informed that people were also offended by it.
Mercedes star apologizes
Hamilton soon took to the internet to clarify his remarks. He accepted his mistake of calling his home a slum and said he didn’t choose the right words at that moment.
Further, he claimed that he is incredibly proud of where he comes from and would never bad mouth against his home. He promised that he didn’t mean the words he used.
Hamilton was indeed wrong to call his childhood place a slum. The housing prices at Stevenage have already reached above the national average since 2018.
