Dr Disrespect — aka Herschel “Guy” Beahm — was one of Twitch’s top streamers until he was suddenly banned in June 2020. Now, we know what happened. As confirmed in a lengthy statement from Beahm himself, he sent private messages on Twitch to a minor that he says “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate”:
Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017?The answer is yes.Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not.These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual.
The statement followed former Twitch employees explaining in social media posts and speaking to The Verge about why Twitch suddenly broke things off with Beahm, which was based on the messages he sent using its now-removed Whispers feature.
Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded after the ban, has terminated its relationship with the streamer, and accessories company Turtle Beach has also ended its partnership with Beahm.
Here’s the latest news on Dr Disrespect and the reasons for his Twitch ban.
Jun 28
Ash Parrish
YouTube is stopping Dr Disrespect’s channel from making money
Photo by David Becker / Getty Images
Dr Disrespect’s YouTube channel has been demonetized. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube spokesperson Nicole Bell wrote, “We have suspended monetization on DrDisrespect’s channel for violating our Creator Responsibility policy.” Bell also wrote that Dr Disrespect has been suspended from YouTube’s partner program “following serious allegations against the creator.”
The allegations refer to multiple reports that the streamer, whose real name is Guy Beahm, was banned from Twitch in 2020 due to inappropriate messages sent to a minor through Whispers, a Twitch communication app. When Beahm was banned, neither he nor Twitch explained the reason, leaving it a mystery for four years. Late last week, however, Cody Conners, a former Twitch employee, posted on X the alleged reason for Beahm’s ban. “He got banned because got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product,” Conners wrote. “He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon.”
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Jun 27
Jay Peters
YouTube didn’t give Dr Disrespect a contract because of rumblings about his Twitch ban.
Per a Rolling Stone report with more details about the ban:
YouTube’s former global head of gaming partnerships at Google, Ryan Wyatt, confirmed toRolling Stone that Beahm was not offered a contract due to chatter about the circ*mstances of his Twitch ban. He says that a Twitch employee and journalists investigating the incident told YouTube employees that it involved inappropriate messages to a minor.
Jun 26
Sean Hollister
NBA 2K24 will remove Dr Disrespect from the game,
reports Dexerto. And the San Francisco 49ers are now cutting ties with him, too.
The game studio he co-founded also cut ties, and so did peripheral manufacturer Turtle Beach, following my colleague Ash’s reporting that he sent inappropriate messages to a minor. On Tuesday, he shared his side of the story.
Jun 25
Ash Parrish
Dr Disrespect finally shares why he was banned from Twitch
Photo by Matt Thomas / San Diego Padres / Getty Images
Guy Beahm, better known by his streamer persona Dr Disrespect, said he was banned from Twitch four years ago due to private messages he sent to a minor that “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.”
Beahm shared details of the ban in a lengthy post to X, marking the first time he’s directly addressed the reasonfor his removal.
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Jun 24
Ash Parrish
Game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect ‘immediately’ terminating relationship with the streamer
Photo by Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images
Midnight Society, the game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect, has terminated its relationship with the streamer. In a post on X, the studio wrote, “On Friday evening, we became aware of an allegation against one of our co-founder’s Guy Beahm aka Dr Disrespect.”
That is the day and time that former Twitch employee Cody Conners posted a tweet about the alleged reason for Beahm’s permanent ban, saying it was for “sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product.” Robert Bowling, a former Infinity Ward developer and fellow Midnight Society co-founder, posted shortly after, saying, “I’m now aware and I’m dealing with it... I landed from Stockholm, reconnected, saw the tweet and immediately began an investigation to learn everything I need to know so I can ensure a full follow through.”
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Jun 23
Ash Parrish
Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees
Photo by Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images
Twitch abruptly banned one of its biggest stars —Herschel “Guy” Beahm, better known by his persona Dr Disrespect —in 2020 without a word of explanation. Now, four years after Beahm’s permanent ban, two former Twitch employees have come forward to describe events they say contributed to his removal from the platform.
One former Twitch employee, who asked to remain anonymous citing the potential risk to their career, told The Verge that Beahm had used Whispers, Twitch’s now-defunct messaging system, to exchange messages with a minor and initiate a conversation about meeting up at TwitchCon. The employee worked on Twitch’s trust and safety team at the time of the ban in 2020.
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Sep 1, 2020
Jacob Kastrenakes
Dr Disrespect says his mysterious Twitch ban is causing him anxiety
Dr Disrespect says he still doesn’t know why he was banned from Twitch, and he warned viewers that the mysterious ban has been causing him anxiety. “My anxiety levels are something that comes in these huge waves,” said Dr Disrespect, real name Guy Beahm, on a stream compilation posted to YouTube this afternoon. “And I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’ll be honest.”
Twitch signed Beahm to an exclusive contract at the beginning of the year. But in June, his account disappeared from the platform, and Twitch refused to say why or even confirm that he had been banned. It was a big surprise given that Beahm was one of the platform’s top streamers. The ban came amid criticisms about Twitch failing to deal with sexual harassment, though no complaints had been publicly made about Beahm.
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Aug 6, 2020
Bijan Stephen
Dr Disrespect officially returns to streaming
Photo by Bobby Quillard
Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm has returned to streaming, this time on YouTube. His first stream goes live tomorrow at 3pm EDT. The controversial streamer was permanently banned from Twitch in late June, for reasons that are still unknown.
Though he’d signed an exclusive deal with Twitch back in March, Beahm does not have a similar arrangement with YouTube. Sources close to Beahm say that he plans to experiment with other platforms like Facebook Gaming and his own personal website, the Champions Club.
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Jul 16, 2020
Jacob Kastrenakes
Weeks later, Dr Disrespect still won’t say what happened with Twitch
Photo by Bobby Quillard
Dr Disrespect has spoken up for the first time in over two weeks in conversations with multiple news outlets, but the streamer declined to comment on why he might have been banned from Twitch and provided only vague details about what might come next.
The streamer, real name Herschel “Guy”Beahm, told The Washington Post that he wasn’t interested in “engaging crazy speculation” about the reasons behind his apparent ban. He’s “considering” a lawsuit against Twitch, according to PC Gamer, and he’s starting to figure out what the Doc’s return will look like. He also said he took a short vacation to the beach. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety,” Beahm said.
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Jun 28, 2020
Sean Hollister
Dr Disrespect breaks silence, but Twitch still refuses to say what’s going on
Photo by Bobby Quillard
What you’ve probably heard: three months after he signed an exclusive two-year contract with Twitch for a “life-changing” amount of money, Twitch has nonetheless “permanently banned” Guy Beahm, aka Dr Disrespect, for something he did in violation of the company’s rules.
What you might be thinking: it’s too much of a coincidence for his channel’s abrupt disappearance to happen a single day after Twitch announced it would start permanently banning streamers for sexual harassment and assault.
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Jun 26, 2020
Jacob Kastrenakes
Dr Disrespect is gone and Twitch won’t say why
Photo Illustration by Alex Castro | Photography by Bobby Quillard
Dr Disrespect disappeared from Twitch this afternoon, with his account vanishing from the site, leading to rumors that he had been banned. The disappearance comes two days after Twitch said it would begin issuing permanent suspensions for streamers as it cracked down on accusations of harassment and sexual misconduct.
Twitch would not confirm that it had banned Dr Disrespect, why he might have been banned, or whether he might be permanently banned. Twitch signed Dr Disrespect to an exclusive two year contract back in March for an undisclosed but “life-changing” amount of money. The streamer had also made a deal with a production company to create an animated TV series around his character.
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Jun 25, 2020
Jacob Kastrenakes
Twitch reckons with sexual assault as it begins permanently suspending streamers
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
When streamer Samantha Wong told Twitch that she had been sexually harassed by another person connected to the Twitch community, the report went all the way to the top. A Twitch VP who has since left the company, Justin Wong, says he escalated her allegations to Twitch’s CEO, the head of Twitch HR, and a VP who managed Twitch’s relationship with the accused person. “All assured me it would be handled,” he wrote on Twitter.
But a year later, the accused person was still being featured by Twitch. According to Samantha Wong, who streams under the name Sampai, the person she’d reported for harassment was not only still allowed to attend Twitch events, but he was even given the opportunity to appear on segments on Twitch’s official channel. “You, as a company, minimized and dismissed my sexual harassment,” she wrote on Twitter.
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