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A global hit video of a BBC interview being interrupted by two small children has sparked a race row after some viewers wrongly assumed their Asian mother was their nanny.

Professor Robert E Kelly was left red-faced after he was spectacularly upstaged by his two children who burst into the room while he was giving an interview to BBC News on the political situation in South Korea.

His wife Jung-a Kim quickly ushered the two young intruders out of the room and lunged to close the door as her husband attempted to continue with the interview.

The video was viewed hundreds of millions of times by people around the world who expressed their amusement at the near-perfect comic timing of the interruptions.

But it has sparked a fierce debate about “systemic racism” after some news outlets and viewers wrongly assumed that the panicked Asian woman, who rushed in to drag the children out, was their nanny and not their mother.

Journalist Ashitha Nagesh tweeted: “CAN EVERYONE PLEASE STOP ASSUMING THE WOMAN IN THAT BBC VIDEO IS THE NANNY, SHE IS HIS WIFE (sorry for the all caps) #stopbeingracist.”

Roxie Cooper tweeted: “Why is everyone assuming the woman in that hilarious BBC video is a nanny? Why isn’t it his wife?”

Writing on Romper.com Jen McGuire wrote: “Are we really still, in 2017, openly stereotyping? Seeing an Asian woman in a white man’s house with kids and telling ourselves: ‘Yep, that’s the nanny. Now, let’s send out a bunch of tweets to call her the nanny like it’s a fact.”

Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, said: “Today one of the funniest, most charming videos showed me that we have way more work to do than I ever thought.”

She later added: “Some of you should look long and hard at why you assume that mother is the nanny.”

Critics on social media also pointed disapprovingly to the way Professor Kelly tried to push his daughter away.

Russel Drew said on Twitter: “Wow... the BBC dad pushed his kid away. Glad he's not my father.”

Abigail Wells wrote: “Everyone laughing at these kids interrupting their dad on BBC one but I ain't laughing about the way the eldest was pushed and pulled about.”