The French striker was frozen out for much of the 2025-26 season before joining Sevilla on loan during the January transfer window.
The treatment came months after now Tottenham manager De Zerbi had publicly praised Maupay, saying he would remain at Marseille for as long as the Italian was in charge.
Looking back on that period, Maupay made clear that the experience had affected him despite choosing not to dwell on his relationship with his former coach.
“I don’t treat my children like that,” Maupay told RMC when reminded of De Zerbi’s earlier comments. “Then everyone has their own methods of education.”
Maupay described being separated from the rest of the squad during training, including having his belongings placed away from the main dressing room.
“When you arrive at training and find your things in a portable cabin at the back of the training ground, when you are alone doing laps of the pitch and you don’t have access to the dressing room, it is normal to suffer,” he said.
“It would be a lie to say otherwise.”
The forward made clear that the isolation was not simply a matter of playing fewer matches.
“I was put to one side for a large part of the season, I trained alone, I came here and I saw nobody,” Maupay said. “It was not easy to experience.”
Maupay had initially been presented by De Zerbi as an important figure at Marseille, making his eventual exclusion from the first-team environment particularly striking.
Despite describing the period as one of the most difficult of his career, however, Maupay says he does not want to remain focused on what happened.
“I don’t want to dwell on this, I have to move forward,” he said.
The striker has therefore chosen to draw a line under the episode rather than allow it to dominate his future.
His comments nevertheless offer a detailed insight into the personal impact of being removed from a first-team environment, particularly when the player had previously enjoyed the public backing of his manager.
Maupay is now looking to focus on the next stage of his career rather than continue revisiting his difficult spell under De Zerbi.