Upon his return to YouTube on September 6, Guy Beahm, the streamer best known as Dr Disrespect, spoke to an audience of more than 200,000 viewers about the circumstances of his lifetime ban from Twitch. He said he “never sent sex messages to anyone” through Twitch’s Whispers messaging system and called the former employee who leaked the allegations a “fucking rat.”
Beahm began his statement by saying that the terms of his settlement with Twitch imposed a message blackout on all parties involved, which was in place until a “disgruntled employee” leaked allegations about the reason for the suspension earlier this year. He also addressed YouTube’s decision to demonetize his channel, saying that he could and intends to apply for monetization again on September 25.
He then quickly changed course, going on an aggressive defense and condemning the actions of the people behind the initial leak of the reasons for his ban. “This was handled professionally,” Beahm said, “and you, knowing how black and white the internet is, decided, you damn rat, to leak the reported reason why Twitch banned me in 2020.”
Beahm also asked rhetorically whether the person behind the leak knew the “legal definition” of sexting, a point that seems uncomfortably central to Beahm’s defense. “Yes,” he said. “And yes, I used Twitch’s Whispers, but trust me, I was not sexting anyone.”
“I interact with my community. I interact with other streamers,” Beahm said. “And through Twitch Whispers, I communicate with Twitch users. Conversations that revolved around different games, game politics, content creation, random things. That was all that encompassed my communication with that Twitch user.”
Beahm questioned whether the person he was communicating with was even underage. “When all these so-called journalists were firing off your tweets, did any of you consider that this Twitch user might have been over the age of consent at the time of the messages? You did not,” he said. “None of these journalists thought that, and neither did Twitch at the time of the ban.”
This argument appears to be based on the difference between the age of consent (the distinction between minors and adults), which is 18 in most states and 19 or 21 in a few, and the age of consent. The legal age of consent for sexual activity, which Beahm explicitly referenced several times, is only 16 in 34 U.S. states and 17 in six others. “Twitch makes this decision to terminate my contract and ban me while admitting that they never researched the age of consent in the jurisdiction where the user’s messages were sent and received,” he said, then exclaimed “Fuckin’ unbelievable!”
Beahm also denied the allegation that he attempted to meet with the user at TwitchCon, saying, “I never intended to ever meet this user. We never planned to meet at TwitchCon or anywhere else, and in fact, we never met in person, ever.”
Beahm claimed that Twitch found no legal wrongdoing in the exchange, a point he has made before, while noting that no charges were ever filed against him but that a conspiracy led by his former affiliate manager led to the suspension of his channel anyway. “The reality is they wanted to take the doc down, plain and simple,” Beahm said.
Much of what Beahm said contradicts his now-deleted June statement, in which he admitted to exchanging “Twitch Whisper messages with a single minor” in 2017 that “at times veered too far toward inappropriateness.” One can debate the semantic differences between “inappropriate” and “sexting” all one wants, but he clearly stated that the other person was a minor at the time of the communication. Today, he was referring to the legal age of consent.
The prepared speech seemed muddled (even to Beahm), but it’s also a not unfamiliar tactic: Rather than admitting or addressing his own role in the matter, Beahm pointed the finger at everyone else—the leakers, the journalists, Twitch—and relied heavily on the strict legality of the matter, as if the absence of a criminal complaint equated to the absence of wrongdoing.
Although Beahm hinted that there will be “consequences for spreading lies” about him, it doesn’t seem like any are in sight. He didn’t mention any potential legal action against the leaker or Twitch, indicating that he believes the matter is behind him. “I’m not saying anything further about it,” Beahm said. “Unless I have to, because believe me, I have more that I haven’t revealed.” He also hinted that he won’t make the messages that led to his suspension public.
“Everyone says, ‘Show the news.’ Are we in second grade?”
I have asked Twitch for comment on Dr Disrespect’s statement and will send an update if I receive a response.