Zellsis Fined For Making Sexually Suggestive Gesture at VCT 2023
VALORANT pro Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro is usually in the spotlight for his incredible skills but he recently had the esports community holding in laughter after his iconic trolly personality got him in trouble.
Cloud9 was facing NRG at VCT America 2023 when the camera cut to the Cloud9 squad halfway through the match. During this short blip of a moment, Zellsis could be seen making a gesture that Riot Games found to be inappropriate. This resulted in a fine.
“Apparently I was on the mainstream for this s—, dude. That got me fined,” Zellsis said while reacting to the moment in a livestream.
In the same stream, Zellsis confirmed that he was fined for “air-sucking d—” but did not say how much he was actually forced to pay. Some asked if it was $10,000 since that was his donation goal on Twitch. But Zellsis said that he “can’t say how much” and wanted to leave it at that.
A lot of VALORANT fans were shocked that Zellsis would get fined for something so minimal. One fan pointed out that it was something he could have easily gotten away with but he happened to be unlucky in that the camera had been on him for that short moment in time.
Said another: “So someone can stand up and shout across to the enemy team but [Zellsis] can't sit down and blow the skin flute?”
While Zellsis’ gesture was largely viewed as funny by the VALORANT fanbase, viewers largely understood that Riot Games has to keep the livestreams clean and family-friendly for sponsors. Others pointed out that the pros should be, well, professional.
“Gotta love the folks here who are clearly too young to understand how reality, society, and professionalism works. Folks forget that this is a live broadcast involving sponsors on a THIRD PARTY streaming platform where the general audience includes minors but somehow thinks a sexual oriented joke is no big deal,” one YouTuber commented.
This isn’t the first time that Zellsis has been punished for behavior at a tournament. While playing for Version1 in 2021, Zellsis was suspended from the NA VALORANT Champion Tour’s third stage open qualifiers and main event for violating the Global Competition Policy’s rule 7.1.2.
Zellsis broke this sportsmanship-related rule when he was accused of making “offensive and discriminatory remarks about a tournament official” at VCT Masters 2 Reykjavik. It was stated that Zellsis said something sexist or racist to a tournament official.
He officially apologized on Twitter after the incident went public. This time around, however, Zellsis is clearly not feeling as guilty for his fine.
