UFC star Israel Adesanya has been slammed by New Zealand's deputy prime minister for making 'flippant comments' about rape after sending a grim taunt to a rival fighter.
The middleweight champion has received significant backlash for his offensive video after hitting out at Kevin Holland by saying in a now-deleted Instagram post: "Bro, I will f***ing rape you."
And the New Zealander has now been criticized by his own country's deputy prime minister Grant Robertson, who has taken a dim view on his words and appeared to call on the UFC to take action against him.
"There is never a time to make flippant comments about rape. It's just not something anybody should do."
"I'm sure Israel understands that. I believe he has deleted the tweet in question. It will be up to the UFC as to what they do.
"But I would certainly be making clear to him, and to anybody actually, that we have to take rape seriously.
Adesanya, who was born in Nigeria but has been a New Zealand citizen since he was 10, failed to respond to the comments directly but appeared undisturbed by the criticism.
He tweeted a gif alongside the words, "Incoming click bait NZ media in 3, 2, 1... This is what it's all about...CLOUT!!"
