The Carphone Warehouse has responded to 50 Cent making disparaging Twitter remarks about special needs children by pulling his visit to its Dundrum Town Centre store.

The rapper was due over on Wednesday to promote his wireless range of SMS audio headsets, which are exclusive to the Carphone Warehouse and range in price from €119.95 to €399.95.

Tweeting back to an over-zealous fan, Fiddy said: “I just saw your picture fool, you look autistic. I don’t want no special ed kids on my timeline. Follow somebody else.”
It won’t have gone unnoticed that he used the #SMSaudio hashtag.

Comments such as “Never let him in to Ireland”, “Everyone needs to boycott this!” and “He’s a gobshite!” on the Carphone Warehouse Facebook appear to have forced the company’s hand.

“We wish to assure you all that we entirely appreciate your responses in regards to the visit of 50 Cent and would like to take this opportunity to reinforce that we value each and every one of our customers,” reads an official statement. “We appreciate that 50 Cent has issued an apology in relation to his recent comments however we have decided not to go ahead with the event.”

That apology from 50 Cent – “I realise my autism comments were insensitive. However it was not my intention to offend” – appears to have been a little too late as far as Carphone Warehouse are concerned.