Dr Disrespect ousted from own studio as new Twitch ban allegations surface
"In order to maintain our principles and standards... we needed to act."
High-profile streamer Guy "Dr Disrespect" Beahm has been ousted from Midnight Society, the game development studio he co-founded in 2021, after new allegations relating to his much-publicised Twitch ban surfaced late last week.
Beahm was permanently banned from Twitch in the summer of 2020 - a year into a two-year exclusivity contract with the company - but neither party has ever revealed why. The closest Twitch came to an explanation was a statement shared at the time of the ban, saying it takes "appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service... regardless of status or prominence in the community." In August 2021, Beahm announced he was suing Twitch over the ban - but the legal dispute was later settled, with neither party admitting to any wrongdoing.
And that appeared to be the end of the matter, until last week. On Friday, Twitch's former account director of strategic partnerships, Cody Conners, made a post on social media alleging an unnamed person "got banned because [he] 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."
While Conners did not name Beahm directly, the connection was quickly made - and his claims were corroborated by two former Twitch employees in a subsequent report by The Verge, this time explicitly linking the allegations to Beahm.
And it's in the wake of these allegations that game developer Midnight Society - which is currently working on free-to-play first-person extraction shooter Deadrop - has now officially parted ways with Beahm, who co-founded the studio with former Call of Duty community manager Robert Bowling in 2021.
"On Friday evening we became aware of an allegation against one of our co-founders Guy Beahm aka Dr Disrespect", the studio wrote in a statement shared on social media. "We assumed his innocence and began speaking with parties involved. And in order to maintain our principles and standards as a studio and individuals, we needed to act."
"For this reason," the statement continued, "we are terminating our relationship with Guy Beahm immediately. 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."
While Beahm hasn't yet formally commented on his split with Midnight Society, the streamer did share a statement on social media after the new allegations began circulating last week. "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 fucking internet," he wrote. "I didn’t do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid."
During a stream almost immediately prior to Midnight Society's announcement, Beahm told viewers he "definitely [needed] to take a break from everything" and take a "step back", adding, "I mean I'm gonna have to relay this to the Midnight Society, but, you know, maybe I step away from there too. Just completely remove myself from the scene. It's what I need to do."