Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh apologises for ‘crass’ joke about Queen Elizabeth on day of her funeral: ‘It was not funny’-Rachael O'Connor-Entertainment – Metro

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh is sorry for writing a ‘crass’ tweet about the late QueenElizabeth (Picture: Getty Images)

Author Irvine Welsh has apologised for writing a ‘crass and classless’ joke about the late Queen Elizabeth on the day of her funeral.

The Trainspotting writer, who is from Edinburgh, faced backlash after he penned a tweet on Monday, minutes before the State funeral began, asking if it would be ‘disrespectful’ to ‘have a w**k’ over a photo of the late monarch.

Taking to the site on Monday morning, he wrote: ‘Question: would have a w**k over a image of the younger queen be respect or disrespect? (Asking for a friend) (sic).’

Hours later, at 2.35am that night, Irvine deleted the tweet and issued and apology, saying the joke had been ‘crass’ and he had hurt people.

Again taking to Twitter, the 63-year-old acclaimed author wrote: ‘I deleted my tweet about the Queen.

‘It was crass and classless and just not very good or funny.’

The acclaimed writer made the joke on the day of her funeral (Picture: AP)

He added: ‘I don’t profess to understand how people get upset about such things, but they do and in many cases their pain is genuine.

‘It’s not my place to say how people should feel.’

Many praised the writer for deleting the joke and apologising, with one saying it was a ‘mature decision.’

Others were less forgiving, with one raging that the ‘damage was done as soon as you hit the send button. Comments were bang out of order at a time when Britain was mourning.’

Queen Elizabeth died on 8 September, with her son Charles now the King (Picture: Getty Images)

There were widespread scenes of mourning as fans of the monarch queued up to say goodbye on the day of the funeral (Picture: ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)

Irvine, a fierce supporter of Scottish independence, recently made headlines for another explicit-ridden Tweet when he told Scottish Tories to ‘get f***ed’ for using a Trainspotting reference to trash the SNP.

The party had reworded the famous Choose Life quotes, which originally featured in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film adapted from Irvine’s novel, to bash the SNP party and promote themselves.

Their message, styled in a similar fashion to the iconic film’s poster, reads: ‘Choose another future. Choose life without the SNP.’

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Some of the lines in their poster included slogans such as ‘choose the Hate Crime Bill’, ‘choose a hard border with your neighbours,’ and ‘choose the worst drug deaths in Europe’.

Welsh reserved some choice words in response, tweeting: ‘Get f***d you c**ts.’

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