John Cena Expresses Regret For Apologizing To China For Describing Taiwan As A Country: "I Pissed Off My Home Country"

John Cena recently expressed regret for apologizing to China after describing Taiwan as a country while promoting Fast & Furious 9 back in 2021.

If you recall, Cena described Taiwan as a country while doing an interview on the Taiwanese broadcasting network TVBS to promote Fast & Furious 9. Specifically he said that Taiwan would be “the first country to watch the film.”

Following these comments, Cena issued an apology in Mandarin that was translated by the South China Morning Post, “Hi China, I’m John Cena. I’m in the middle of Fast & Furious 9 promotions. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I made a mistake in one of my interviews.”

Cena continued, “Everyone was asking me if I could use Chinese – [movie] staff gave me a lot of information, so there was a lot of interviews and information.”

“I made one mistake. I have to say something very, very, very important now. I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry about my mistake,” said Cena. “I apologize, I apologize, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you.”

Now, in an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Cena expressed regret over issuing the apology and even shared he no longer speaks Mandarin at all due to lack of knowledge and wisdom regarding geopolitical issues surrounding China.

“So man, I got put in a bit of a hot spot,” he said. “I made pact to myself when I was like, ‘Okay, I feel fluent.’ We would do these global press tours and I just happened to be on a global press tour. And I’m, ‘You know what? I’m going to do 70% of my media in Mandarin, like in dialogue.’ And I got to say, I did it. Like I went over there, spoke, people were taking off the translator headphones. Like life was good. Everything was great And then at the very end of the day, as with all these press tours, you do like a bunch of prompter reads. So I’m doing prompter reads for everywhere. And it’s like, ‘Hey, go to this place and see this movie.’ And, no, my bad. I didn’t check the reads because it’s like the end of a 10-hour day. You do a million of these things. And one of them said, ‘Hey, Taiwan, see this, this.’ And it was all in Mandarin and the opinion described Taiwan as a country, ‘Be the first country to see this.’”

“Now, over there, they look through a different lens,” he continued. “Like geopolitics are murky waters, man. And that’s when when I learned of like-. I just said it, left, everybody was cool. I did my thing. I read the prompt. It was like a Ron Burgundy moment. ‘Like go [expletive] yourself, San Diego.’ It was like the most offensive thing you can say. So I’m like, ‘Man, good job, John. You did 70% and people understood what you were talking about. And then they put that out and everybody was like, ‘What the [expletive] did you just say? That’s now how we do it over here.’”

“And again, my takeaway, 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 [expletive] up. And it was like murky waters for me personally. And it was weird. I think I’m the only guy to almost get cancelled for doing his homework. Trying to like learn and try to do something.”

“But the cool takeaway, we can learn from every mistake. My mistake was just because you know the language doesn’t mean you know the culture,” he added. Additionally, Cena claimed he didn’t know enough about the geopolitics to even properly comment on the topic.

In fact, he then shared that he no longer speaks Mandarin due to this incident, “I just won’t do it. It’s a skill that I have, but it’s a skill that’s going to remain with me. I don’t have the depth of field to know what to call that place in that region of the world. And I haven’t done enough research, and I don’t have the wisdom, and I don’t have the cultural fluency.”

“So it was a cool lesson,” he concluded. “It sucked ‘cause I thought I was just trying to do something good, but it was a cool lesson.”

Later in the interview, he did put the blame for it all on himself, “I got into some water that I shouldn’t have been swimming in. But that’s on me. It was my fault. And I think that’s important for me to bear the burden of that. How do I course correct? What did I learn? Who do I really genuinely have to apologize for offending?”

“The biggest thing that was a kick to the nuts is when people state side got pissed off,” he admitted. “[Because I apologized] in Chinese. And I understand completely [that] bowing down to the demand of this that gosh, what a [expletive] move by me. I should have taken a breath. Again, what did I learn? Don’t be reactive. Take a breath. Find out what’s going on. Find out the best path of action. Maybe give it a few days. Maybe give it a hot second. And then move forward.”

However, he then shared why he did immediately apologize, “But immediately I was like, ‘Oh they’re mad? You want us to do this? Fine, no problem. I’ll fix it right now.’ Man, not only did I not try to fix the hole in the boat, I sunk the Titanic. But again, it was a learning experience.”

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