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- Streamer DrDisrespect said on Monday that he is suing Twitch, the platform that made him famous.
- The creator with a fake mullet and moustache was banned in June 2020 for publicly unknown reasons.
- For the past year, he's been creating content on YouTube, which he says earns him less revenue.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Streamer Guy Beahm, known online as the character DrDisrespect, said on his Monday stream that he was suing Twitch in the wake of his June 2020 ban.
The competitive DrDisrespect has become one of the most prolific streamers in gaming, making a name for himself with his unique brand of aggression and quality gameplay on titles like "Call of Duty" and "Apex Legends." He has remained mostly silent as to the reason behind his ban on Twitch and the company has never shared the exact reason.
The streamer, who now broadcasts on YouTube, added that he has known the reason Twitch banned his account "for months now," though he has not shared it publicly.
"There's a reason why we are suing the f— out of them," Beahm said on stream.
In June 2020, Beahm was banned from Twitch and claimed in a YouTube video that he "did not know why" and wasn't "told anything about it." Twitch's public response wasn't much clearer, telling Insider that "we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service."
Since August 2020, Beahm has been streaming on his YouTube channel, which has 3.46 million subscribers.
On Monday's stream, Beahm said that on YouTube, he was making a "quarter" of what he made on Twitch, where he had 4.4 million followers before the ban.
"All of the big sponsors and partnerships, they have to question why you got banned," Beahm said, adding that big-name companies won't work with him because his persona is now tied to his ban from Twitch.
He also said an "eight-figure deal" was taken away from him. He appeared to be referring to a multi-year deal for an undisclosed amount he had signed with Twitch in March 2020, which was canceled with the ban.
The "viewership is atrocious" since switching over to YouTube, Beahm added.
DrDisrespect has been a fixture of the gaming world for over a decade
Beahm uploaded his first YouTube video as the DrDisrespect character in January 2010, already fully formed with his signature mustache, sunglasses, and bravado. In 2011, Beahm was hired as a community manager for Sledgehammer Games, the developer of the "Call of Duty" franchise, and in 2012 he announced on Twitter that he was promoted to level designer for the games.
In 2015, Beahm announced his retirement from game design to pursue streaming full-time. Over the next three years, he became one of Twitch's most popular content creators. Throughout 2017, he averaged between 20,000 and 30,000 viewers per stream, according to data collection site Twitch Tracker.
His career has also been marked by controversies.
In December 2017, he took a two-month hiatus from streaming after announcing he had been unfaithful to his wife, but returned in February 2018 to his highest viewer count yet, averaging 200,000 concurrent viewers per stream. According to Twitch Tracker, by February 2018, Beahm was pulling in an average of 50,000 viewers per stream and consistently topping most-viewed creator charts.
Beahm received a two-week suspension from Twitch in June 2019 after streaming from a bathroom at the video game convention E3. He published an apology after his suspension on "behalf of the DrDisrespect brand" on Twitlonger.
According to Kotaku, he made controversial remarks about COVID-19 during a March 2020 stream, reading aloud an article with false information about the disease's death rate and severity.
Beahm did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
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