{"id":162504,"date":"2025-09-17T05:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T05:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162504\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T05:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T05:51:08","slug":"taylor-townsend-apologizes-for-chinese-food-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162504\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Townsend apologizes for Chinese food comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>American tennis star Taylor Townsend is apologizing after she posted a series of Instagram stories where she shared her shock and scathing reaction to some of the cuisine she was served at dinner ahead of the Billie Jean King Cup this week in Shenzhen, China.<\/p>\n<p>Townsend, 29, was at a restaurant with USA teammate Hailey Baptiste on Tuesday night when she started the commentary on Instagram. Her posts were then criticized online as disrespectful to China\u2019s culture and culinary traditions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just wanted to come on here and apologize sincerely from the bottom of my heart,\u201d Townsend said in a video apologizing for her comments. \u201cI understand that I am so privileged as a professional athlete to be able to travel all around the world and experience cultural differences\u2014which is one of the things that I love so much about what I do. I have had nothing but the most amazing experience and time here at the tournament, and everyone has been so kind and so gracious. The things that I said were not representative of that at all, and I just truly wanted to apologize.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Taylor Townsend on the dinner buffet she saw in China:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m honestly just so shocked at what I saw in the dinner buffet. As I go back and I look\u2026 these people are literally killing frogs\u2026 bullfrogs. Aren\u2019t those poisonous? Aren\u2019t those the ones that give you warts and boils\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IQHDp49yrZ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IQHDp49yrZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheTennisLetter\/status\/1967998943775838300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">September 16, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no excuse, there are no words\u2026 I will be better. I\u2019m really, really thankful to my country and to be able to represent them and be better. That\u2019s all I can do. I just truly apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her initial comments, Townsend recorded food that had been laid out buffet-style, which included dried sea cucumber, bullfrog and braised soft-shelled turtle with fish maw.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The respective food items are considered delicacies in China.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37133024\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250831_USOpenTennis_CS056.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Townsend reacts during her match against Barbora Krejcikova (CZE) in the fourth round in Louis Armstrong Stadium on day 8 at the 2025 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025, in Queens, NY.\" class=\"wp-image-37133024\"  \/>Taylor Townsend reacts during her match against Barbora Krejcikova (CZE) in the fourth round in Louis Armstrong Stadium on Day 8 at the 2025 US Open on Aug. 31, 2025. for the NY POST<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the craziest thing I\u2019ve ever seen\u2026 and people eating this,\u201d she captioned one video.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m honestly just so shocked at what I saw in the dinner buffet,\u201d Townsend said in a later Instagram story. \u201cAs I go back and I look\u2026 these people are literally killing frogs\u2026 bullfrogs. Aren\u2019t those poisonous? Aren\u2019t those the ones that give you warts and boils and stuff?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the fact that it\u2019s all stewed up with chillies, peppers, and onions. Like oh, you really made this a dish. All in all, I\u2019d give this like a solid 2 out of 10 so far, because this is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/NYP082925USOPEN65JS.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor&#10;Townsend of the US reacts after defeating Mirra Andreeva during night six of the US Open Tennis Championships at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Friday August 29, 2025 in Queen, New York. \" class=\"wp-image-37133025\"  \/>Taylor Townsend celebrates after her night match win Mirra Andreeva during Day 6 of the US Open. on Aug. 29 2025. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n<p>Users on social media started calling Townsend out for the comments, with some labeling them disrespectful or ignorant.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/30\/sports\/taylor-townsend-didnt-know-about-jelena-ostapenkos-social-media-apology\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Townsend became one of the big stories<\/a> during the U.S. Open after she got into a heated encounter with Jelena Ostapenko in which the Latvian said that the American had \u201cno class\u201d and \u201cno education,\u201d leading to accusations of racism toward Ostapenko.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Townsend will be competing alongside Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro, McCartney Kessler and Baptiste with Team USA in China.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American tennis star Taylor Townsend is apologizing after she posted a series of Instagram stories where she shared&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,24842,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-162504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-taylor-townsend","10":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}