Dr Disrespect was permanently banned from Twitch four years ago for no known reason. Now, a former Twitch employee is speaking out and making serious accusations against the streamer.
The American streamer "Dr Disrespect", also known as Herschel "Guy" Beahm, was permanently banned from Twitch in 2020 for reasons unknown at the time. While no one knew exactly why the permanent ban occurred, DrDisrespect continued his streaming career for 4 years as before on other platforms.
But now an insider from Twitch has spoken out and described what probably happened back then.
Accusations Against Dr Disrespect: Why He Got Banned On Twitch
According to former Twitch employee Cody Conners, Beahm was permanently banned in 2020 because he allegedly wrote inappropriate messages to an underage girl in Twitch's former Whisper function and planned to meet her at TwitchCon.
He got banned because got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product. He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon. The powers that be could read in plain text. Case closed, gang.
— Cody Conners (@evoli) June 22, 2024
Now it's out in the open and everyone involved, including Dr Disrespect's community, feels betrayed. The fact that such an incident could only be cleared up after four years is a disgrace, also for Twitch. We ask ourselves why the whole thing didn't come to light sooner.
Why Nothing Ever Came To Light
Jacob Wolf, a former journalist at ESPN, opened up about the situation on X. He says that after Dr Disrespect was banned, Beahm's PR representative at the time, reached out to several media outlets, including The Verge, The Washington Post and ESPN, to offer an exclusive interview. However, this was only on the condition that he would not answer any questions about the Twitch ban. Even at this point, it should have been clear to the outlets that they were not playing with open cards.
According to Jacob Wolf, a former journalist at ESPN, this debacle dragged on for over two weeks and attempts were made to play the three media outlets off against each other.
"Gabriel is one of the slimiest PR people I worked with in my decade-long journalism career. I’m not surprised he tried to mislead our outlets, then eventually pit us against one another when we pushed back." ~ Jacob Wolf
When the interview with the Washington Post and The Verge took place, Beahm stated that Twitch did not want to give him a reason for deleting his account. It is unclear whether this statement is true.
A little background on the whole PR thing: In summer 2020, Gabriel del Rio, who repped Doc, approached three outlets: the Washington Post, The Verge, and ESPN, where I worked at the time. He offered all of us an "exclusive" interview, on one condition - we don't ask about the...
— Jacob Wolf (@JacobWolf) June 22, 2024
The fact that Herschel "Guy" Beahm is alleged to have had sexual contact with a minor is not only illegal, but is also strongly indicative of "grooming"
Grooming is when a person builds a relationship with a child, young person or an adult who's at risk so they can abuse them and manipulate them into doing things.The abuse is usually sexual or financial, but it can also include other illegal acts.
It is not known exactly what was communicated between the two people and whether this was done by consensus. However, there is likely to have been a large power imbalance due to age and familiarity.
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