John Cena reflected on the backlash he faced for referring to Taiwan as a country.
WWE legend John Cena was a recent guest on the Joe Rogan Experience. During the conversation, the 17-time WWE Champion looked back at the time he found himself at the center of controversy for calling Taiwan a country. China views Taiwan as a part of its own territory and rejects any claim that it’s a self-governed state.
John Cena revealed that he was reading in Mandarin from a teleprompter while promoting Fast & Furious 9 in an interview with a Taiwanese broadcaster. However, he wasn’t aware of the situation between China and Taiwan when he said those words.
“I’m doing promptor reads for everywhere,” John Cena began, “and that’s like, ‘Hey, go to this place and see this movie,’ and, no, my bad, I didn’t check the reads. Because at the end of a ten-hour day, you do a million of these things, and one of them said, like, ‘Hey, Taiwan, see this..’ and it was all in Mandarin, and the opinion described Taiwan as a country. So, be the first country to see this.
“Over there, they looked through a different lens, like geopolitics are murky waters, man. When I learned of it, like, I just said it, left, everybody was cool, I did my thing, like, I read the prompt. It was like a Ron Burgundy moment, like, go fu*k yourselves, San Diego. It’s like the most offensive thing you can say.
“So, I’m like, ‘Man, good job John, you did 70% and people understood what you’re talking about.’ Then they put that out, and everybody was like, ‘What the fu*k did you just say? That’s not how we do it over here.'”
John Cena Doesn’t Speak Mandarin In Public Anymore
“My takeaway is it was a pretty tense moment for me. I had to apologize to China, and in apologizing to China, I pissed off my home country. I’m a patriot. I love the United States of America and everything it stands for. But it was never enough; nobody was happy, everybody was f*cked up.
“It was murky waters for me, personally. Again, I don’t know enough depth to know that, and now, people are like, ‘Man, can you speak Mandarin for this?’ I just won’t do it. It’s a skill that I have, but it’s a skill that’s gonna remain with me, because I don’t have the depth of field to know what to call that place in that region of the world. I haven’t done enough research, I don’t have the wisdom, and I don’t have the cultural fluency,” John Cena said.
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If you use the quotes from this article, please credit the Joe Rogan Experience and give an H/T to WrestleZone for the transcription.
