Herschel Beahm IV, better known to millions of people by his video game streamer persona, Dr Disrespect, has been demonetized from YouTube and suspended from the company's partner program. It is the latest humiliation in Beahm's public fall from grace, following his admission that he sent "inappropriate" messages to a minor four years ago—messages that got him permanently banned from Twitch back in 2020.
Despite happening four years ago, the circumstances surrounding the ban became known in the past month, when a former Twitch employee revealed them. And it's difficult to see how things will get better for Beahm from here on out. In fact, given the gravity of his actions, it is far more likely that things will get worse.
Here, for your morbid fascination, is a timeline of the Dr Disrespect controversy—what he did, who knew what and when, and how he, his affiliated companies, and the public have reacted to these shocking reveals.
Signs Exclusive Deal
March 12, 2020
In order to lose a deal, you have to have one in the first place. And in March 2020, Twitch signed Beahm to an exclusive, multi-year, eight-figure deal. Beahm said in a statement to the press:
“Twitch is where I built the Champions Club empire and keep entertaining the hundreds of millions of fans looking for me to dominate competition. Twitch is my home and I have made plans to stick around for a while.”
He was, at the time, one of Twitch's biggest stars, drawing in an average of 50,000 viewers per stream. He was named Streamer of the Year at The Game Awards in 2017 and 2019, and he cultivated partnerships with prominent mainstream brands, including WWE and Mountain Dew.
There had been some personal controversies in the past. On December 4, 2017, he admitted on stream to cheating on his wife, and on June 11, 2019, Twitch banned him (and unbanned him 30 days later) for filming in a public bathroom at E3. But there had been nothing on the level of what was to come. And clearly, Twitch and Beahm were optimistic about their ongoing partnership.
Permanent Ban
June 26, 2020
Twitch permanently banned Beahm from their platform in June 2020, and the company released a vague press statement confirming it:
“As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Due to the general nature of the statement, the public speculated as to the specific reason. Was it some DMCA-related drama, since Beahm streamed copyrighted content? Or was it something more insidious?
Discord also banned Beahm on the same day, with no comment as to why. Beahm would later say he didn't know they were in a partnership to begin with.
“I Don't Know Why”
June 27, 2020
The next day, Beahm posted on X, confirming the Twitch ban and claiming that he did not know the reason for it:
"Twitch has not notified me on the specific reason behind their decision... Firm handshakes to all for the support during this difficult time."
“I Still Don't Know Why”
July 16, 2020
Beahm did an interview with the Washington Post, in which he revealed that he had retained legal counsel and expressed his continued shock and dismay. He also claimed that he still didn't know why he had been banned:
“Honestly, we just don’t know. It was a total shock. Imagine showing up to work and the doors are closed and you can’t get inside. You’re going, ‘What’s going on?’ And you’ve been told you’ve been fired. But you haven’t been told the reason why. We just weren’t given an answer… It was the worst feeling.”
In August 2020, Beahm took his Dr Disrespect streaming persona to YouTube.
“I Now Know Why!”
August 25, 2021
While on stream, Beahm responded to a viewer who asked about the Twitch ban. He confirmed that he now knew why he was banned, and that he would be "suing the fuck" out of Twitch.
Settlement
March 10, 2022
Beahm released a statement on X that he had settled his case against Twitch:
"I have resolved my legal dispute with Twitch. No party admits to any wrongdoing."
Of course, no admittance of wrongdoing does not mean that no wrongdoing occurred. Twitch would release a similarly worded statement to the press. Beahm also confirmed that he would not be returning to Twitch and would instead remain on YouTube.
And then, for approximately two years, there was radio silence. Everyone seemed to have moved on.
Lost Opportunities
April 9, 2024
In April 2024, Beahm commented on lost opportunities stemming from the Twitch ban, including a potential endorsement deals with Nike and Oakley. Regarding the Oakley partnership, it had apparently progressed far enough that Beahm had prototypes of branded merchandise.
Reveal and Statement #1
June 21, 2024
Then the shit hit the fan. In June 2024, Cody Conners, who worked for Twitch as an Account Director for Strategic Partnerships between April 2018 and June 2023, revealed the alleged reason why Beahm was banned from Twitch on X:
"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."
Beahm indirectly responded a little under two hours later, replying to game journalist Jake Lucky:
"Jake seriously... I get it, its a hot topic but this has been settled, no wrongdoing was acknowledged and they paid out the whole contract."
That language is evasive at best, incriminating at worst. And it did nothing to steam the outrage from Conners' initial reveal.
Statement #2
June 22, 2024
The following day, Beahm posted a longer message to X, prefacing his comments by saying there was a limit to what he could say legally:
"I didn’t do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid."
Again, the legal language raised more questions than it answered. There were many vocal members of the public who defended Beahm at this point, saying that he was "innocent until proven guilty," and that the public should wait to see hard evidence before abandoning Beahm entirely—that the word of one person was not enough to destroy a man's reputation.
It is, however, worth noting that legally actionable and immoral behavior are not one and the same. A person's actions might not rise to the level of a prosecutable crime, but still be deeply creepy and/or inappropriate.
Midnight Society Termination
June 24, 2024
On June 24, Midnight Society, the gaming studio that Beahm co-founded, sent out a statement that they had investigated the matter after assuming Beahm's innocence. And after speaking with the "parties involved," the studio decided to terminate their relationship with Beahm.
They ended their statement with an acknowledgement of their conflict:
"While these facts are difficult to hear and even more difficult to accept, it is our duty to act with dignity on behalf of all individuals involved, especially the fifty-five developers and families we have employed along with our community of players."
Statement #3: The Confession
June 25, 2024
The following day on June 25, Beahm posted his lengthiest statement regarding the entire matter on X.
He claimed that had stepped down from his leadership role at Midnight Society game studio, and that it was a mutual decision that he was involved in. That seemed to contradict the language in Midnight Society's official statement from the prior day.
He then went on to comment on the allegations themselves, using an evasive rhetorical trick that Nick Wilde described in Zootopia: answering a question with your own question, and then answering that question:
"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."
He then conceded that he might be morally culpable:
"Now, from a moral standpoint I'll absolutely take responsibility. I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with. That's on me. That's on me as an adult, a husband and a father. It should have never happened. I get it. I’m not perfect and I’ll fucking own my shit. This was stupid."
He ended his message with a bizarrely defiant statement:
"They want me to disappear... yeah fucking right."
The craziest thing about this personal statement is that X tracks the editing of the message, post-publication. And after publishing, he edited the statement to remove the word "minor" from the line "twitch whisper messages with an individual minor." He then added the word "minor" back into the statement after being called out by numerous users.
Many people also noted that the accusations dated back to 2017, years before Twitch even signed the contract with Beahm and the same year that Beahm confessed to cheating on his wife.
More Exploitation Accusations
June 26, 2024
The following day, streamer Leena Love accused Beahm of exploitation. She claimed that he asked her for free cam shows in exchange for a partnership, and that after receiving the shows, he blocked her. Love posted receipts of their conversations as proof. She also alleges that in addition to cheating with her (a trans sex worker) and texting a minor, he was also cheating with another woman.
Rolling Stone Exclusives
June 27, 2024
The following day, Rolling Stone published an investigative article, which supported Conners' initial tweet; that The Verge and Bloomberg had corroborated the account with sources, who confirmed the sexual nature of Beahm’s messages—and that Beahm had asked about the minor's plans for attending TwitchCon.
Rolling Stone added an additional, unsavory detail from its own sources: that Beahm continued sending graphic, sexually-charged content to the minor after learning their age.
Former global head of gaming partnerships at YouTube Ryan Wyatt also confirmed to Rolling Stone that Beahm had not been offered an exclusive contract with YouTube due to the circumstances and rumors surrounding his Twitch ban.
YouTube Takes Action
June 29, 2024
YouTube suspended monetization of the Dr Disrespect YouTube channel on June 29 "for violating our Creator Responsibility policy" following "serious allegations against the creator." The company says that this suspension applies to any channels that Beahm currently has, and will also apply to any channels Beahm might make in the future.
Where there's smoke, there is usually fire. And though all of this looks horrible, we have yet to see the actual messages to the minor—messages that Beahm himself concedes were "inappropriate." We will update this article if those messages become public.
