Law&Crime Sidebar - Chris Hansen Blasts Dr. DisRespect for Messaging Minor on Twitch: 'He Got Caught'

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Herschel “Guy” Beahm, known for his online person Dr. DisRespect, said in a message on social media that he communicated with a minor through the Twitch platform’s private chat option. Beahm says nothing happened but admitted it was wrong to do so. The communication resulted in his ban from the Twitch streaming platform. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the allegations and admissions with the founder of TruBlu, Chris Hansen.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Now, Doc, I'm going to need you to have a seat right over there. A popular video game streamer who skyrocketed to fame in the last few years is experiencing a spectacular downfall after he was accused of messaging a minor on the streaming service Twitch. We're sitting down with renowned predator catcher Chris Hansen, who recently called out the man known online as Dr. Disrespect. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. His profile on X, formerly known as Twitter, calls him the most ruthless athletic competitor in video game history.

Dr. Disrespect is the colorful persona that belongs to 42-year-old Herschel Guy Beam. Now, if you're not really familiar with the gaming community, give you a perspective here. The doc has risen in popularity so much over the years that he had more than 4 million subscribers on the streaming service Twitch that was before his account was banned, which we're going to get into. So he first uploaded a video to the Dr. Disrespect Channel in 2010. So he's been part of the public video gaming community or culture for a long time. His style mixes video gameplay and trash talking with cutaways of him and. a costume that includes a wig, a headset, or helmet.

And he apparently became community manager for sledgehammer games at one point in time before quitting to focus on a full-time streaming career in 2015. Now, Dr. Disrespect's popularity led to multiple sponsorship deals, collaborations on various products. And while video games are fun, we also remember it can be quite a lucrative career. Dr. Disrespect is reportedly worth over $10 million. dollars. But the doc's success, at least on Twitch, came crashing down in 2020 because Twitch banned his account, only saying that, quote, the 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. In fact, the site still shows a message that the account is banned if you try to see it. Dr. Disrespect was also removed from Discord. That's another streaming app. And more than a month after his band, Dr. Disrespect launched on YouTube, where he still has around 4 million subscribers. But here's the question. Why the ban? Why did this happen? Seemingly, for allegedly, inappropriately messaging a minor through Twitch. Last week, Cody Connors, a former Twitch employee, posted this to X, quote, he got banned because he got caught sexting a minor in the then-existing Twitch Whisper's product. He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon. The powers that be could read in plain text, case-closed gang. Now, Conners didn't

actually name Beam in this tweet, but followers put two and two together. Twitch Whisper, by the way, is a chat option within the streaming platform that allows you to privately message with other users. The game studio that Beam had co-founded, Midnight Society, had fired him as well. The studio director, Robert Bowling, tweeted, this is a statement for me personally. It does not reflect any of my companies and has not gone through any legal or PR approvals. if you inappropriately message a minor, I cannot work with you, period. I promise to only act on facts, and I did. So with that in mind, I want to bring in renowned predator catcher, journalist, host of Take Down on True Blue,

and the podcast, Predators I've Caught with Chris Hanson. You know what I'm talking about. Chris Hansen. Good to see you. Welcome back to the show, my sir. Good to see you, Jesse. Quite a situation here, isn't it? Yeah, what do you make of it? well i think that he got caught using you know twitch whispers having an inappropriate conversation with somebody who was underage now there's no evidence that he actually met this person or did anything with them or or you know executed any plan but he has admitted as you know in a statement

you're going to get into shortly that he made this this contact that he had this conversation And ironically, this all came to a head just as he had signed an exclusive deal with Twitch that was going to be worth millions and millions of dollars. All of a sudden, they come to this agreement where they part company. Why? Well, apparently it's because of this communication he had. And whether or not he actually followed through on anything that was discussed, he has admitted that it was inappropriate.

And I asked this question to everybody who surfaces in one of my investigations. Would you be comfortable if another adult, and this guy is like 42 years old now, approached your child and said things like you said to this child? And the answer invariably is no, it wouldn't be all right. The next question is, then why did you think it was all right? And we have not gotten an answer from Dr. Disrespect on this matter so far. So let's break something down real quick. And this is not to cast aspersions on the gaming community whatsoever.

But in your experience, first, Twitch, that platform, that whisper platform, in your experience, have you seen a lot of predators or alleged predators or people who have been accused of similar things using that? I'm not an expert necessarily on Twitch. I know Twitch and, you know, Discord can be used, obviously, for inappropriate contact. But my understanding of this Whisper's chat feature is that it's not widely used. It was almost to many people who use Twitch or observed. gamers on Twitch. It almost seems as if it was some sort of an afterthought that they added it on,

like the old Facebook communication line. And so I don't think it is widely used. So we've never come across it actually being used by any known predators in the past, at least in our investing. Quite the allegations, to say the least. Look, the world can be a scary place. I always say, and the truth is one of the scariest things that can happen to you, something that comes out of nowhere, is if you get hurt, if you get injured. But that is why I want to talk to you about our incredible sponsor, Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. This is a firm that has secured verdicts and settlements in the millions, a firm that makes it super easy for their clients for this whole process, because from starting your claim to uploading documents,

to signing contracts, to talk to your legal team, it can all be done from your smartphone. That's it, seeing if you have a case only takes a few minutes. This is a firm also where there's no upfront fee. You only pay them if you win. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone. Now I want to get into Beam's response and get your take on it. So Beam had posted on X, I believe back on June 22nd. Listen, I'm obviously tied to legal obligations from the settlement with Twitch, but I just need to say what I can say since this is the effin Internet. I didn't do anything wrong. All this has been probed and settled. Nothing illegal.

no wrongdoing was found and I was paid. Then he releases this statement on X. Actually, before I even get into the next statement, what did you make of that statement first, Chris? Well, obviously there was an issue. As I mentioned earlier, they had just signed this major exclusive deal between Dr. Disrespect and Twitch. And he probably did get paid. There was something that Twitch thought was bad enough, offensive enough, inappropriate enough, to get out of this deal they had just signed. That was important to Twitch and important to Dr. Disrespect. So something happened there that even in this grayish

ethical gaming community at times, something that was offensive enough to make them call off this deal or to bring it to an end and I'm sure everybody did get paid. Let's get into the statement now where he essentially, in his words, says what happens. So he writes in a statement, let's cut the F and B.S.

As you know, there's no filter with me. I've always been up front and real with you guys on anything that I can be up front about, and I'm always willing to accept responsibility, which is why I'm here now. Everyone has been wanting to know why I was banned from Twitch, but for reasons outside of my control, I was not allowed to say anything for the last several years. Now that two former Twitch employees have publicly disclosed the accusations, I can now tell you my side of the story regarding the ban. 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. Nothing illegal happened. No pictures were shared. No crimes were committed. I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with Twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement.

Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me. And by the way, that's correct. Beam has not faced any sort of criminal charges related to these allegations, and it's not understanding there's any kind of investigation that's happening. But he continued. Now, from a moral standpoint, I'll absolutely take responsibility. I should never have entertained these conversations to begin with. That's on me.

That's on me as an adult, a husband, and a father. Should never have happened. I get it. I'm not perfect, and I'll effing own my stuff. This was stupid. I'm no effing predator or pedophile. Are you kidding me? anyone that truly knows me effing knows where I stand on those things with those types of people

eff that that's a different level of disgust that i effing hate even hearing about don't be labeling me as the worst of the worst with your exaggerations chris your take on that react on that response well i think you know a couple of things one it shows a clear lack of judgment that he would even enter into a conversation like this with somebody who's underage even though it was back in in 2017 you know it's a man in his in his 30s at the time and what are you thinking why would you even get into a conversation with somebody of that age that approaches being inappropriate okay and yes he apparently did not act on any of this he was not criminally charged uh and maybe he's not a predator or a pedophile and there's no indication to to say that he is but why you have in

the conversation it shows in the best case scenario lack of judgment. In the worst case scenario, he got caught before he did something. And I don't want to go overboard and speculate here because he's not facing any criminal charges. But this community will ratchet this up and use it any way they can to show disrespect to Dr. disrespect because they get clout, they get views by creating drama for somebody who's very popular. So this, this culture in some ways is like an ant farm. You know, they feed off the anger towards each other, and it keeps spinning and spinning until the drama, you know, ultimately sometimes gets out of control. So, yeah, you can raise all the questions you want about the communications.

You can acknowledge that there was no criminal activity here, apparently. But this community is going to play this for all it's worth because they're selfish and they want to bring attention and drama to themselves. It's the way this ecosystem is. And just to clarify this a little bit, there were unnamed sources, this is reporting by Bloomberg, that confirmed Mr. Connors' count that I'd mentioned before. And two of those sources had said that Mr. Beam had asked this minor about her plans at TwitchCon. This, by the way, is an annual convention for streamers and fans and gamers. But, you know, I guess the thing was when he talks about in a statement about not having the intention. Part of me wondered if he was putting on a persona, right? He was playing this role of

Dr. Disrespect, and maybe he was a little too fluid in his words, but he had no intention of actually meeting up with her or engaging in any kind of sexually explicit conduct or doing anything like that. If he didn't have any plans, but he was playing a role, maybe being inappropriate, what would you say to that? Like he was basically putting on a person. And again, it sounds like an excuse that I hear from a predator in one of our investigations. This is role playing. You know, I didn't think she was being truthful about her age. Well, it doesn't look good. It may not be a felony or a misdemeanor, but it shows very poor judgment.

And so why do you even have the conversation? Right. What's the purpose of? Could he say, hey, listen, I'm a big gamer. I'm trying to meet my fans. Have you heard any? Like, what would you say if that was the case? Maybe.

Well, then that's possible. And again, there was no crime committed here, but it doesn't look good. And whatever is in the exact text was enough for. Twitch to call off and kill with a cash settlement, a very big exclusive Twitch deal that was going to be lucrative for both sides. So it had to be bad enough for them to kill that. And let's talk about the aftermath of this. So he did apologize to his team. He apologized to the gaming community. But in the aftermath, it really hasn't gone well for Bean because I already mentioned some of the fallout, but also Turtle Beach, a sponsor, removed all of its

Dr. Disrespect branded products from its website. The San Francisco 49ers who had worked with him in the past for promotion said they're no longer going to work with him. When it comes to fellow streamers and friends, they've called him out. Beam has said that he's taking now an extended vacation, but that he'll be back. What do you make of that response from the sponsors in the gaming community? You talk about how they might be jumping onto it, but yeah. Right.

It sounds like somebody who's, you know, tried to placate the haters and take some responsibility for what he did. and now he's going to try and lay low he's made a ton of money already he has 4.7 million subs on on youtube his videos get an average of 500,000 to a million each episode so he's making money he's made money and now it appears he's going to try and lay low and one would hope to reevaluate his conduct online so chris there's been reporting by the way that he edited that statement that he first didn't have the word minor and then added it back in that's been the reporting. He's been very careful, it seems, about how he, crafting that message.

Well, apparently the word minor was in there, and then he took it out, and then a lot of people called him out for it, and he put it back in, is my understanding. So, you know, he reacted to the outcry that, you know, surfaced on X when he took the word out. So he put it back in, apparently. The last sentence in his statement says, they want me to disappear. Yeah, F and right. What do you make of that? Well, he's obviously planning for his second or third act, whatever it is by now, I'm going to try and, you know, get back into the game. But, you know, when you do have an inappropriate conversation with a minor, it is something that's going to tag you for a very long time and probably should if all the allegations are true. All right. We'll see

where this goes. Chris Hansen. Good to see you. Check him out on True Blue. Check out his podcast predators I've caught. Take Down with Chris Hansen. Always great to see you. Chris, thanks so much for breaking down these stories for us. Thank you, Jesse. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.