TSM's Fortnite team fines ZexRow for profane rant

Team SoloMid fined Anthony "ZexRow" Colandro one month's salary on Friday in response to his profane rant after winning the Week 1 championship in the Ninja Battles Fortnite series a day earlier. ZexRow, 19, had joined Jonathan "Calc" Weber and TSM teammate Mack "MackWood" Aesoph to win up the Thursday event, with the trio set to split $25,000.

In a postmatch interview on the event's stream, ZexRow turned the topic to the latest Fortnite Championship Series tournament. "Hopefully I do well in solos," ZexRow said. "Last FNCS didn't go too well, but I just made more than top nine in it. So everyone that didn't place in top 10 can (expletive) my (expletive). They're (expletive expletive). I don't know why they talk (expletive). They're actually also (expletive) and braindead. That's all I'm saying."

TSM chief executive officer Andy Dinh announced ZexRow's fine, writing on the team's website, "We are extremely disappointed in the comments made by Anthony 'ZexRow' Colandro and take this matter very seriously. Effective immediately, he has been fined one month's salary. His behavior was absolutely inappropriate, and does not represent the values of TSM or our brand partners. "The Fortnite community is important to us at TSM, and is made up of younger players. We know the impact words and actions have, and it is important to make sure that kids see and know that acting like this is not OK. For this reason, we are donating the amount of Zexrow's fine to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, an organization that does amazing work for young people all over the country."

ZexRow had issued an apology later Thursday night, writing on Twilonger, "I was interviewed and said very very distasteful things, it even would be distasteful to say on my own stream but even more so after winning a tournament and on the Ninja broadcast. "I want to directly apologize to Ninja and the tournament organizers for overshadowing what otherwise was a great tournament that was fun to play in with my immature actions.

"I'm also sorry to TSM and my fans for disappointing you guys, I should live up to the standards of a professional and in that moment I didn't. This is something that I will take some time to reflect on to improve my future behavior." Dinh acknowledged ZexRow's apology but added, "We will be providing Zexrow with professional counseling and training, helping him to work on how he conducts himself -- both publicly and privately.

"Zexrow has been a valuable member of our organization for some time, and we hope to help him learn and grow from this incident. That said, we have informed him that we have a no tolerance policy for this kind of behavior, and that we will be forced to part ways if something like this should occur again in the future." According to DotEsports.com, ZexRow's TSM teammate Emad "EmadGG" Nasif said on his stream following the rant that ZexRow is "actually an idiot."

--Field Level Media

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