The fallout from Dr Disrespect's admission that his lifetime ban from Twitch was the result of inappropriate communications with a minor continued today with a report that the streamer's name will be removed from NBA 2K24 in a future patch. The pending removal follows similar moves from organizations including Turtle Beach and the San Francisco 49ers, both of which have confirmed that they have ended their relationships with the streamer.
Dr Disrespect, real name Guy Beahm, was one of the biggest streamers on Twitch when he was banned from the platform in 2020. The reason for the ban remained unknown until earlier this week: After a former Twitch employee alleged the suspension was the resulting of "sexting a minor" through Twitch's Whispers messaging system, Beahm himself confirmed this was the case, although he downplayed the nature of the conversation, describing it as "casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more."
Beahm did not reveal whether he knew the person he was talking to was a minor at the time of their interaction. Regardless, his effort to minimize the situation did not go as he presumably hoped—if anything, it had the opposite effect. The backlash on social media only intensified, and multiple companies have formally ended their relationship with him.
The first to cut him loose was Midnight Society, the game studio he co-founded in 2021, which announced on June 24 that after an investigation, "we are terminating our relationship with Guy Beahm immediately."
That actually came one day prior to Beahm's admission, but the dominoes have been falling quickly since then. A series of Dr Disrespect-branded Turtle Beach gaming peripherals, including a headset, keyboard, and mouse, were removed from the company's website; Turtle Beach confirmed in a statement provided to PC Gamer that "we will not be continuing our partnership with Guy Beahm/DrDisRespect."
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League, which began a promotional relationship with Beahm in 2022, has also severed ties, telling SFGate, "We take these developments seriously and will not be working with him going forward."
The Two Time has reported to #49ersCamp.@DrDisrespect pic.twitter.com/iu2jeAmWGxAugust 9, 2022
Earlier today, Dexerto reported that Beahm will also be removed from NBA 2K24 in a future patch. A 2K representative later clarified in a statement to PC Gamer that "The Dr Disrespect named player animations will be renamed in the next patch in August."
There's not an explicit connection to Beahm's admission of improper communications with a minor, but the website for Black Steel Bourbon, a company Beahm founded in 2022, is also offline.
The Dr Disrespect Champion's Club website—essentially a place to buy merchandise—has also been scrubbed of content, and now goes directly to a customer service form for order inquiries. The Wayback Machine indicates that all content was present on the site as recently as June 25.
Later in the day, after this story was published, YouTube demonetized Beahm's channel on its platform. "We have suspended monetization on Dr Disrespect’s channel for violating our Creator Responsibility policy," a YouTube representative told PC Gamer. The rep said the channel was demonetized because of the allegations against Beahm, and noted that YouTube's guidelines cover behavior both on and off the platform. Beahm is also prohibited from making new channels to circumvent the demonetization.
Beahm has been silent on the matter since his June 25 statement, in which he admitted to the exchange of messages with a minor in 2017. He also said in that statement that he's "not fucking going anywhere," and that after an extended vacation he's "coming back with a heavy weight off [his] shoulders." But it's clear that despite his insistence that no actual wrongdoing was acknowledged, an awful lot of what he left behind won't be waiting for him when he returns.
