Top Gear presenter and columnist Jeremy Clarkson was labelled a bully and "ignorant and unfeeling" by animals rights group Peta after posting a picture of a mouse supposedly squashed during rehearsals for Top Gear's live show online.
Clarkson, 52, posted the picture on the social networking site Twitter from the Russian capital Moscow, joking that "sadly, some animals were harmed during rehearsals".
The photo was largely applauded by Clarkson's 1,300,000 followers but Peta were less than amused.
The group's founder, Ingrid Newkirk, said the stunt proved the BBC man to be an "oaf".
Clarkson tweeted the picture of the dead mouse on Friday
"This man seems doomed to be remembered as an oaf and lout, stuck in a bully boyhood, in which it’s funny to mock the misfortunes of anyone in a slightly different form than his own.
"His tombstone will read: ‘Ignorant and unfeeling, except when it came to cars.’"
Not a stranger to controversy, Clarkson has previously been criticised for inflammatory remarks about, among others, lorry drivers, Mexicans, Germans, Poles, the Scottish, Gordon Brown, the Welsh, people who complete suicide, Indians and people with facial disfigurements.