Ariana Grande apologises for insensitive JonBenet Ramsey joke

Singer-songwriter Ariana Grande apologised to her fans after she made an insensitive joke about the late pageant princess JonBenet Ramsey, who was murdered at the age of six.

On Sunday, Grande's friend Doug Middlebrook took to Instagram to share a photo of JonBenet on a newspaper cover, along with the caption, "No one has done more covers."

Grande then commented, "I can't WAIT for this to be your Halloween look," to which Middlebrook wrote back, "Working on it already."

The 26-year-old singer quickly found herself in a social media chaos with many users calling her out on Twitter and re-posting her since-deleted comment. Middlebrook also deleted his post.

"Wait WHAT?? an 8-year-old girl who was violently killed, strangled and suffocated cannot be anyone's costume," one user wrote alongside screenshots of both Grande's comment and Middlebrook's post.

Grande later responded to the tweet, writing, "yeah no I deleted it very quickly and understand that it's not at all funny. this was out of pocket and I sincerely apologize."

"I truly love Ariana with all of my heart and I continue to support her, but she is 26. she shouldn't need her fans to call her out so she can realize that what she did was wrong. She apologized and its enough for me. I hope she felt bad and she will be more sensitive from now on," one fan weighed in after the apology.

Nonetheless, many fans admitted they were still disappointed with Grande for not realising the gravity of the situation sooner.

"Girl it was up for a whole day... u didn't delete it 'very quickly,'" one user said.

In their Boulder, Colorado, home on the morning of December 26, 1996, parents John and Patsy Ramsey found a ransom note handwritten on a pad with a black Sharpie that belonged to the family. It demanded USD 118,000, the exact amount of a bonus recently received by John, for the return of JonBenet, reported People.

Later that morning, JonBenet's body, beaten and strangled with a garrotte around her neck and duct tape covering her mouth was found in the basement of the family's Tudor brick home. The police are still looking for the killer.

Around 37 books have explored the crime, along with at least a dozen TV programs and movies. However, none have been helpful in resolving the case.