Former Twitch Employee Says Dr Disrespect Knew He Was Sending Sexually Explicit Messages to a Minor

A new report sheds light on Twitch’s internal response to the Whisper messages.

Updated:

Jun 27, 2024 11:20 pm

Posted:

Jun 27, 2024 11:06 pm

More information has been reported about the 2020 Twitch ban of Guy Beahm, also known as the popular streamer Dr Disrespect, with a Thursday report from Rolling Stone including new details from a former Twitch employee.

As Beahm said in his lengthy statement earlier this week, he exchanged messages in 2017 with a minor via Twitch’s now-defunct Whispers feature that “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.” Now, the former Twitch employee says that the minor had informed Beahm that they were underage, and Beahm continued to send “sexually graphic” messages to them regardless, per Rolling Stone.

“There was no confusion,” the former Twitch employee said. “Messages sent after this was acknowledged were no less graphic and in sexually explicit nature than before, and I think more than the categorization of ‘leaning too much in the direction of being inappropriate’ might indicate.”

Guy Beahm, aka Dr Disrespect, reportedly knowingly sent sexually explicit messages to a minor. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)The former employee also detailed Twitch’s internal response to the Whispers messages once the initial report about them was filed in 2020. They said the decision to permanently ban Beahm from the platform was made “relatively quick, due to the severity of the behavior.”

Additionally, the employee revealed that Twitch created an incident response team codenamed “Gold Sparrow” to take action on streamer sexual misconduct allegations after a number of them came up in June 2020.

Twitch and Beahm did not respond to IGN’s request for comment on the Rolling Stone report. Twitch has not publicly commented on any of the relevations that have come out about the 2020 ban in recent days.

While YouTube, where Beahm currently streams, also has not commented on the situation, the former global head of gaming partnerships at Google, Ryan Wyatt, told Rolling Stone that Beahm was not offered a contract with YouTube due to the rumors surrounding the ban. YouTube employees, he said, were made aware that the ban was surrounding inappropriate messages with a minor.

“There was no confusion. Messages sent after this was acknowledged were no less graphic and in sexually explicit nature than before.

The situation was reignited last Friday after former Twitch employee Cody Conners wrote on X/Twitter that Beahm was banned almost exactly four years ago because he was “sexting” a minor and trying to meet up with them at TwitchCon (Disclosure: Conners briefly worked at IGN in 2011). While Conners didn’t name Beahm in his post, it was confirmed in various reports that he was referring to the popular streamer as more details have emerged over the past week.

Rolling Stone’s source added that it was Conners’ post that “definitely got the ball rolling” in regards to other former Twitch employees speaking out in previous reports on The Verge and Bloomberg.

Beahm responded to Conners’ post and the subsequent reports with a number of statements, with the most substantial of them arriving on Tuesday on X/Twitter. While he admitted in that statement that his conversations with the minor “should have never happened,” he added, “Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual.” He also pointed to his 2021 lawsuit against Twitch over the ban, which was “resolved” in 2022.

A number of brands and partners have cut ties with Beahm in the wake of the revelations, including Turtle Beach, 2K, and the San Francisco 49ers. Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded, also terminated its relationship with him after its own probe into the allegations.

Thumbnail credit: David Becker/Getty Images

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.