Claim: Dalai Lama kissed boy on the lips, asked him to suck his tongue.

Question

In a widely circulated video, the Dalai Lama is shown kissing the lips of a boy who approached him to pay his respects, also claims he asked the boy to suck his tongue.

Did this really happen? Could it be a fake video? If true, is that wrong in Tibetan culture?

Answer 1

This claim and video are true.

The video is real and is supported by this article by Insider. The video shows the Dalai Lama kissing the young boy and telling him "suck my tongue."

An additional article by Firstpost on the video mentioned the Tibetan cultural greeting of sticking out your tongue. Sticking out your tongue to greet someone has been used since the 9th century in Tibet.

The Dalai Lama twitter account later issued an apology for the incident.

Comments

The information you provided about Tibetan culture really put this in context -- very valuable addition!

Answer 2

Believe it or not, this claim is true.  The Dalai Lama apologized for the incident, according to NPR.  This article goes on to state that the Dalai Lama kissed the boy on the lips before saying, "...and suck my tongue."  The apology statement released by the Dalai Lama claims that, "His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras."  Despite appearing to play it off as trying to be humorous, his statement still apologized for the "...hurt his words may have caused."

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1168962589/dalai-lama-apologizes-tongue-kiss

Answer 3

This is true. The Dalai Lama did kiss a young boy and then ask him to suck his tongue. The Dalai Lama issued an apology and said that he was just teasing the boy in an "innocent and playful way".

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/dalai-lama-apologises-after-video-asking-boy-suck-my-tongue-2023-04-10/

Answer 4

As sickening as this is, yes, it's true that the Dalai Lama asked a boy to suck his tongue. Multiple articles and videos have already circulated online a few of them in which I have linked below.

npr.org/2023/04/10/1168962589/dalai-lama-apologizes-tongue-kiss

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/04/10/dalai-lama-boy-kiss-video/11634769002/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/dalai-lama-apologizes-video-shows-asking-boy-suck-tongue-rcna79035

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/04/10/dalai-lama-kiss-young-boy-apology-vedika-sud-ovn-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn

Answer 5

This is true. The Dalai Lama has since apologized.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1168962589/dalai-lama-apologizes-tongue-kiss

Answer 6

This is indeed true. There is video evidence of the Dalai Lama kissing the boy on the lips, and then after asking him to suck his tongue which he also does. Below I have attached a video of the Dalai Lama formally apologizing on asking the young boy to suck his tongue. This is more than enough proof, having the Dalai Lama own up to what he did, to prove that this indeed did occur and is not made up. He said it was done in an "innocent and playful way".

Video: Dalai Lama Apologizes for Asking Boy to Suck His Tongue at ...YouTube · People1 minute, 34 seconds5 days ago