Sentinels Valorant star Zachary ‘zekken’ Patrone issued an apology on social media after Chinese fans criticized him online due to a mistranslated clip from his stream where he referred to himself as a “China hater.”
The incident stemmed from a May 27 stream in which zekken was predicting the outcome of the VCT Masters Shanghai bracket stage. While discussing the first-round match between EDward Gaming and Team Heretics, he commented, “I’m a hater. I’m a China hater. F*** man, I got Heretics.”
This comment was misinterpreted on Chinese social media, leading fans to believe he was expressing hatred toward China and its people. This resulted in numerous hostile comments on his Twitter/X page, including derogatory remarks and images comparing him to a monkey.
One social media user reportedly commented, “Your mouth is as bad as your origin,” according to a machine translation.
Following the backlash, Valorant esports fans and zekken’s agent, Jérôme Coupez, quickly clarified the situation. Coupez explained on social media that zekken’s comments were directed at the performance of the “Chinese VCT League” (VCT CN), not at China or its people. Coupez emphasized that zekken was expressing doubt about the VCT CN region’s ability to win based on their previous results, not hatred.
The stream where zekken made the controversial remark has since been removed from his Twitch channel.
On May 28, zekken publicly apologized to any fans who were offended by the misunderstanding and clarified his comment further. He stated, “Yesterday during my stream I was doing predictions and said ‘I’m a China hater’ when I picked Heretics over EDG. I had no racist intention in saying that. In simpler terms, I was expressing doubt about VCT CN in this tournament. I have absolutely nothing against China or its players. I understand how the translation could make my words seem very hostile. I apologize to anyone who interpreted it that way.”
X users praised zekken for addressing the issue, noting that the controversy arose from a translation error and was not his fault. One user commented, “Things just get lost in translation sometimes, man. Hope they understand it wasn’t meant maliciously.”
