Kylian Mbappe loses Chinese sponsors for calling Mao ‘Chinese dictator’

Mbappe appears to say that the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face photo-shopped onto that of “a Chinese dictator”.Published On 27 Oct 202627 Oct 2026Kylian Mbappe has been dropped by two major brands in China after a video circulated online in which the French football superstar apparently joked about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.In China, jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and remain a social taboo.“Our company firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments,” drinks giant Dongpeng said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that “with immediate effect we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe”.Advertisements showing AI-generated images of the 27-year-old France captain drinking a Dongpeng sports drink were regularly shown in China during this year’s FIFA World Cup.Mengniu, China’s largest dairy producer, also cut ties with the Real Madrid forward, who until this incident was hugely popular among Chinese fans with millions of followers on social media.Mbappe is fondly nicknamed “Guigui”, the Chinese translation of “turtle”, due to his populari...