Justin Bieber has apologised for posting an April Fool's Day post pretending his wife Hailey Baldwin was pregnant, after an outcry from fans.

Justin explained his prank in a post on Instagram, saying he didn't "mean to be insensitive" as he shared a screenshot of an article entitled "Justin Bieber slammed on social media for fake pregnancy news".

There’s always gonna be people offended, there’s also people who don’t take jokes very well, I am a prankster and it was APRIL FOOLS. I didn’t at all mean to be insensitive to people who can’t have children. A lot of people I know, their first go to prank on April fools is telling their parents they are pregnant to get a big reaction. But I will apologize anyway and take responsibility and say sorry to people who were offended. I truly don’t want anyone to be hurt by a prank.. it’s like when I shoved cake in my little sisters face for her birthday expecting her to laugh but she cried. You sometimes just don’t know what will hurt someone’s feelings not to compare pregnancy with cake in the face but it’s just to paint the picture of not knowing what will offend. Some might have laughed but some were offended .. I think With pranks u sometimes have to roll that dice. #prankster #dennisthemenace #sorry #truly

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Apr 2, 2019 at 10:03am PDT

Underneath the photo, he wrote:

There's always gonna be people offended, there's also people who don't take jokes very well, I am a prankster and it was APRIL FOOLS. I didn't at all mean to be insensitive to people who can't have children. A lot of people I know, their first go to prank on April fools is telling their parents they are pregnant to get a big reaction. But I will apologize anyway and take responsibility and say sorry to people who were offended. I truly don't want anyone to be hurt by a prank.. it's like when I shoved cake in my little sisters face for her birthday expecting her to laugh but she cried. You sometimes just don't know what will hurt someone's feelings not to compare pregnancy with cake in the face but it's just to paint the picture of not knowing what will offend. Some might have laughed but some were offended .. I think With pranks u sometimes have to roll that dice.

Justin followed up his post with a series of hashtags, writing "#prankster#dennisthemenace #sorry #truly".

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Apr 1, 2019 at 1:02pm PDT

If U thought it was April fools

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Apr 1, 2019 at 1:24pm PDT

Wait omg is that a,,, APRIL FOOLS

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Apr 1, 2019 at 2:12pm PDT

Fans were seriously unimpressed, branding Justin "insensitive" and "disgusting" and pointing out that pregnancy was not something to joke about.