Time Magazine takes a dig at Donald Trump on their front cover. Forced to explain their controversial decision.

The man who divided the world when he was elected president of the United States has now divided opinion once again after being crowned Time’s Person of the Year for 2016.

The president-elect edged out presidential rival Hillary Clinton, who finished in second place on the list.

The magazine described Trump on its front cover as the “president of the divided states of America” and hours after the cover was unveiled, they was forced to explain why Mr Trump was portrayed with “horns.”

Many social media users quickly decided it was a deliberate dig at the president-elect.

In the past Mr Trump has attacked Time comparing the magazine to a “free handout at a parking lot” and once declaring the magazine would “never pick me as person of the year”, so many wondered whether the “horns” were an act of revenge by the magazine.

After copping backlash on social medi,a not just for their choice of Mr Trump but for their portrayal of him, the magazine explained that in fact, at least 35 times in their history had they given a person of the year “horns”.

Others who had been depicted with horns included the Pope, George Bush and Vladimir Putin.

It appears that Mr Trump was unphased by his devil-in-disguise portrayal, and speaking to NBC about the award said he was honoured.

"It means a lot, especially me growing up reading Time magazine. I've been lucky enough to be on the cover many times this year and last year but I consider this a very, very great honour." The president-elect said.

When asked about the magazine’s controversial statement that he was the president of "the divided states of America" he said, "I'm not president yet so I didn't do anything to divide."

"There's a lot of division and we're gonna put it back together and we're gonna have a country that's very well healed."

Time’s award names the person who has had the “greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year”.

Previous winners have included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, The Ebola Fighters, The Pope, President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Former President George W Bush, and Julian Assange.

But in what really isn’t surprising many on social media criticised the decision liking Trump to Stalin Hitler, or Putin. Adolf Hitler was actually person of the year in 1938 and Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942.

Other names on the short list included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mark Zuckerberg and Beyonce.

Writing about the award Time's Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer said: “For all of Trump’s public life, tastemakers and intellectuals have dismissed him as a vulgarian and carnival barker, a showman with big flash and little substance. But what those critics never understood was that their disdain gave him strength.”

“Now he has up-ended the leadership of both major political parties and effectively shifted the political direction of the international order. He will soon command history’s most lethal military, along with economic levers that can change the lives of billions. And the people he has to thank are those he calls ‘the forgotten,’ millions of American voters who get paid by the hour in shoes that will never touch these carpets — working folk, regular Janes and Joes, the dots in the distance.”