After decades of using combat sports to foster an image as the hard man of global politics, Vladimir Putin’s carefully-crafted persona is crumbling on the world stage. Here are some of the foreign celebrities/athletes who played a role in propping up his dictatorship
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Actor & martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme was among the first foreign celebrities to be pictured w/ Putin, including at MMA events in 2007 & 2010. Van Damme later attended Ramzan Kadyrov’s 35th bday party in Grozny
Steven Seagal was granted Russian citizenship by Putin & became his unofficial celebrity spokesman. He defended annexation of Crimea & regularly pushed Kremlin propaganda. Putin even tried to make him a mediator w/ Washington. Obama was reportedly “flabbergasted” by the proposal
In 2014, actor & former boxer Mickey Rourke lined at a department store in Moscow’s Red Square to buy a T-shirt emblazoned w/ Putin’s face. He later called him a “gentleman.”
“I think he is a good guy. If I didn’t, believe me I wouldn’t wear the T-shirt,” Rourke said.
Boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. was granted Russian citizenship by Putin in 2015. He later met with Kadyrov, defended the annexation of Crimea & claimed that Putin was “misunderstood” & a “man’s man.”
“If he says he’s going to do something, he is going to do it,” RJJ said.
In 2018, Putin granted citizenship to MMA fighter Jeff Monson, a staunch anarcho-communist. He would go on to become a politician in Russia & was useful to the Kremlin for his anti-American stances.
At the 2018 World Cup final in Moscow, UFC star Conor McGregor met with Putin and posed for several pictures with the president. He later called him “one of the greatest leaders of our time.”
Putin had already invaded Chechnya, Syria, Georgia, and annexed Crimea by this time.
Despite years of soft power strategies, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has turned him into a sports pariah. He has been stripped of his honorary World Taekwondo blackbelt & suspended as honorary president of IJF.
Will foreign athletes/actors face consequences for enabling him?
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