Michelle Mone: Vietnamese 'six-year-old boy' picked up by lingerie tycoon is actually a 22-year-old man

The Vietnamese man Nguyen Tan Phat has spoken out about the incident and corrected claims about him

Previous reports claimed a woman in the front row had shouted 'Put him down – I’m his wife!' after Mone posed for a photo with the man in her arms (Getty Images)

The Vietnamese man Michelle Mone mistook for a “six-year-old” boy has been revealed as a 22-year-old estate agent.

Nguyen Tan Phat has come forward to correct widespread reports that he is a 46-year-old married man, explaining he is in his early twenties and is single.

The Glaswegian entrepreneur and Conservative peer scooped up what she thought was a young boy to pose for a photo on stage at an entrepreneurs’ conference in Vietnam.

After coming to the realisation that he was, in fact, a “man”, the 44-year-old Baroness of Mayfair, who is the founder of lingerie company Ultimo, expressed deep humiliation at the “embarrassing moment”.

Writing in a Facebook post titled, “The truth behind the man who is 46-years-old”, Tan Phat explained he had looked this way since he was six-years-old and corrected Mone’s claims his teeth “were bright yellow from nicotine”.

“I never had a wife or lover and I have never smoked. Yellow teeth is due to something other causes,” he explained.

Previous reports claimed a woman in the front row had shouted “Put him down – I’m his wife!” after Mone posed for a photo with the man.

The incident prompted a mixed reaction on Twitter. While many found the saga humorous, with June Sarpong writing, “Hilarious, brings new meaning to picking up a man”, others were less than pleased. “So you're multiplying the man's humiliation by tweeting it to amuse your brain dead supporters,” wrote one user. While another said, “Most people be too shamed to admit to that never mind tweet it. Not funny.“