YouTuber IShowSpeed has apologized after he went on a sexist rant at a teammate in Valorant, which went viral after being shared on Twitter. Riot has banned his account, while YouTube is looking at other potential repercussions.
Rising YouTube star IShowSpeed has not shied away from controversy. After climbing up the platform’s ranks at breakneck pace, he was under fire earlier in 2022 for a sexist outburst on Adin Ross’ stream which led to a permanent ban on Twitch.
Being taken down for “sexual coercion or intimidation”, he then moved over to YouTube full-time — both uploading videos and streaming on the platform.
However, a clip of him yelling sexist remarks at a female Valorant teammate went viral on April 7, starting a new social media storm.
I now understand why Valorant queues are so unbelievably toxic. You got one of the most popular streamers on YouTube IShowSpeed saying crap like this and getting nothing but praise and laughs. Crap is whack pic.twitter.com/grEghVotUF
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) April 6, 2022
In it, he screams at his teammates after missing a 1v1 clutch. After the woman spoke up with her concerns, Speed lashed out: “Is a b*tch talking to me? Is a female talking to me? Am I tripping?
“Get off the f**king game and do your husband’s dishes b*tch. Shut up. Stop talking to me like that. I’m not one of those lame ass Valorant nerds.”
The comments quickly went viral, with Riot and YouTube both looking into the conduct of the streamer.
Valorant developer Sara Dadafshar replied to the clip, stating “This is a huge yikes and we do not want players like this in our community at all. I went ahead and perma banned this player from Valorant, as well as all other Riot Games.”
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YouTube’s Global Head of Gaming Creators Lester Chen also announced the platform would be looking into IShowSpeed’s conduct, saying he was “on it”.
This is a huge yikes and we do NOT want players like this in our community at all. I went ahead and perma banned this player from VALORANT, as well as all other Riot Games. Thanks for raising this. Please keep raising stuff like this and reporting so we can make VAL safer. 🔨🔥
— 🌱 Sara Dadafshar (@npcSara) April 7, 2022
Speed later apologized for his conduct. In an 88-second Twitter clip, he claimed that the clip was from months ago and he had since grown as a person, but it doesn’t justify his actions.
“There is a clip that I’ve seen that’s going crazy right now, me between an altercation with a girl, and I was playing Valorant,” he said. “I wasn’t having a good day. I was getting a lot of racist text-to-speech donations, but I don’t want to make that [an] excuse. I’m wrong.
“I’m not trying to justify [it]. I’m completely wrong in that situation right there. I’m young. Every situation I grow and I change. That is not me no more. I apologize to that girl — if that girl wants to hit me up and say anything, I’d love to hear her out.”
https://twitter.com/IShowSpeed/status/1511877562766868480
He also went live on YouTube following the apology saying “you guys might not see me no more” and talked about a potential hiatus — although he promised to not leave his fans unless he was permanently banned.
“Something happened a long time ago and it’s hurting me right now. I grew from that situation, but it’s coming up now. I’m not leaving. I do love y’all.”
