New York, April 20 (ANI): Jay-Z has defended Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps’s pot smoking incident, saying it was a young mistake.

Phelps, who has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian, had been keeping himself at bay from the spotlight since his controversial marijuana pictures surfaced in January.

And hip-hop mogul Jay-Z offered to explain the reason for the ace swimmer’s actions.

“You look at all these people who graduated from Princeton and Harvard, who are supposed to be pillars of the community - every day [they're] in the newspaper arrested for some kind of financial fraud,” the New York Daily News quoted him as telling told Cigar Aficionado magazine.

“Then you look at someone like Michael Phelps. He’s 23. What’s he gonna do? He’s a kid. He’s going to experiment,” he added. (ANI)