Sam Smith accused of 'ignorance' after tweeting shock at witnessing friend be 'racially abused' in London

Singer's tweets met with mixed reaction

Smith also criticised the police for being 'unhelpful' (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Sam Smith has been accused of “ignorance” and “living in a bubble” after describing his shock at a friend being "racially abused" in London.

In a series of Twitter posts, the singer told his four million followers he was “speechless” after witnessing the verbal attack and said he was left “hurt” and “upset” by the incident.

“Just experienced my friend getting verbally abused racially in London. I am absolutely SPEECHLESS,” he wrote.

The London-born "Stay With Me" singer also expressed shock, having apparently not witnessed this happen before in the UK capital.

This particular tweet appeared to be problematic for many who had to explain to the singer that unfortunately racist incidents such as this are not a rarity.

Additionally some accused Smith of “whitesplaining” racism to his followers and pointed out that although he may have been upset by the incident, it didn’t actually happen to him.

However, others defended Smith and praised him for drawing attention to racism.

Smith also criticised the “unhelpful” police who dealt with the incident, another thing he said shocked him and encouraged him to go public with the incident on social media.

In September last year Matt Damon was criticised for “whitesplaining” after he interrupted the black director Effie Brown to give his thoughts on diversity.

He later apologised for causing any offence and said he was glad if his remarks initiated a conversation about diversity in Hollywood.