Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist, is about as divisive a figure as one can find.
A prime example is Peterson’s Sports Illustrated tweet, in which he called a curvy woman wearing a swimsuit simply “not beautiful”.
Peterson was extensively ridiculed as a result of the message, which inspired him to completely stop using Twitter—or at least made threats to do so.
However, Peterson’s self-imposed isolation was short-lived, and soon his tweets began to become increasingly antagonistic, ending in a harsh message that made reference to and dead-named the actor Elliot Page.
“Deadnaming” is the purposeful act of mocking a transgender or non-binary individual by referring to them by a name they used previously to transitioning, like their birth name.
Then, Twitter suspended him.
However, this has not been the beginning or the end of the controversies regarding Jordan Peterson.
His stories reach far beyond just the social media platform.
Peterson has complained bitterly about Marxism, humanitarian organizations, HR departments, and “an underground apparatus of radical left political motivations” attempting to impose gender-neutral pronouns on him.
Peterson made headlines a year ago when he said that in order for him to get a COVID-19 immunization booster, “you’d have to kill me first”.
Ira Wells, a professor at the University of Toronto, referred to him as “the professor of piffle” since he was more of a YouTube celebrity than a respectable academic.
This is why when football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo uploaded a photo with the psychologist on Instagram with the caption ‘Nice to see you my friend. #seeyousoon’, there was considerable surprise and uproar.
The Manchester United player has been through a lot in the past year or so.
From losing his daughter to having an immense drop in form, it is understandable why he would want to visit a psychologist.
What is not understandable is his choice of psychologist, which has been polarising, to say the least.
Die-hard CR7 followers have already started hailing Jordan Peterson as the greatest psychologist alive.
There is a high chance that they never heard about him before the photo was uploaded, and made this claim just because Ronaldo posed with him.
Others are a lot more critical, calling into question why Ronaldo agrees with his ideologies.
One fan made a great point by asking about how this singular photo of Ronaldo with Peterson would influence young minds worldwide to view and agree with his videos or ideas.
The player himself got a lot of flak for uploading the image.
Ronaldo getting back in action and in good form is what the football world needs, however, he might not have the best man for the job.
Either way, it is interesting to see what happens next for Ronaldo, as FC Sheriff host Manchester United for their UCL tie.