As has been teased for several weeks now, Dr. Disrespect, who admitted to inappropriately contacting a minor, has returned to streaming on YouTube. With a lot of caveats.

Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm addressed the allegations around his 2020 Twitch ban in detail on Friday during his first YouTube appearance since admitting, over two months ago, to exchanging “inappropriate” messages with a minor back in 2017. He suggested the user in question was not under the age of consent in the jurisdiction where they lived, and framed the ongoing controversy around his ban as a conspiracy among reporters and disgruntled Twitch employees to defame him.

The controversy around Beahm’s 2020 ban was reignited in June when former Twitch employee Cody Conners tweeted that the ban had occurred because the streamer had been caught allegedly sexting a minor. Reports by The Verge, Bloomberg, and Rolling Stone followed that corroborated the claim that Beahm was banned from Twitch over messages he’d exchanged with someone under the age of 18. The streamer later admitted to an “inappropriate” exchange while denying that anything illegal to place, before later deleting the statement and teasing a comeback on YouTube even after the Google-owned platform demonetized his channel over the allegations.

“Did you not know the repercussions about spewing lies about the Two-Time, did you not know the repercussions about accusing me, Cody Connors?” Beahm said in his first livestream in over two months with over 300,000 viewers watching. “You see, you don’t know shit, and it was obvious from your tweet. You didn’t have any first-hand knowledge of my dispute with Twitch. You said I got banned from Twitch because I was sexting a minor through Whispers messages? Do you even know what the legal definition of sexting is? I do. And yeah, I used Twitch’s Whispers but trust me, I wasn’t sexting anyone.”

Beahm, who settled a lawsuit against Twitch over the ban which reportedly forced the platform to pay out the extent of his contract, claimed that the investigation into his messages was motivated by malice and failed to do due diligence. “The same people that made this decision at Twitch admit internally that the messages did not warrant any child sexual abuse material charge,” Beahm said. “Twitch makes this decision to terminate my contract and ban me without ever interviewing me, the user, or any third-party including the partner manager.”

The long-time streamer, who blew up in the late 2010s playing popular shooters like PUBG and Call of Duty, also denied that there was anything predatory about the messages he sent. “Neither I nor the Twitch user exchanged any sexual graphic messages or images,” he said. “Mutual bantering with inappropriate jokes taken out of context should have never led to me getting banned by Twitch in the first place.”

Beahm also suggested that the user was not under the age of consent in the jurisdiction where they were messaging him from, and claimed that the person had not wanted to escalate the report of inappropriate messages within Twitch. “Let’s set the record straight,” he said. “I never intended to meet this user ever. We never made plans to meet at TwitchCon or anywhere else. And in fact we never met in person ever.”

The precise content of the messages in question still remains unknown, and Beahm said he would not be sharing it. “I’m in such a good place today,” he said. “And all these people act like they’re just so perfect. I’m not perfect, I don’t claim to be perfect. Well, sometimes I do, but I also didn’t do all the shit they’re saying I did.”

Though he claimed he has more information to disclose, he said it wouldn’t be happening today as he moved his focus to streaming the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta. Beahm said that he will reapply for partnership status from YouTube on September 25 to have his channel re-monetized, and will continue streaming in the meantime.

Twitch and YouTube did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dr Disrespect’s Defense: ‘Banter’ and ‘Age of Consent’

Dr. Disrespect’s channel was demonetized by YouTube as all this was unfolding, and he says he wants to stay on YouTube, rather than move elsewhere. There were theories perhaps he’d find a home with Kick or Rumble, places that attract…controversial streamers, but that does not seem to have happened. He says he will reapply for monetization at the end of the month, but he can take donations and…people are donating.

This first return stream was watched by 230,000 people right when it launched. 30 minutes or so later that’s dropped to 160,000, and continues to fall. Though that’s still a huge amount. He has restricted chat to subscribers who have been subbed for 13 weeks, an incredibly long time and no doubt to curb those trying to bring up the allegations and his confession in the chat.

He did in fact briefly address the issue at hand, where his stream is called “The Truth” and he has previously deleted his long admission messages where he acknowledges he was banned from Twitch because of inappropriate Twitch Whisper messages he sent to a minor.

His new “explanation” this time is that he had a Twitch partner manager with a “grudge” who scraped those Twitch messages and sent them to Trust and Safety at Twitch, Twitch legal and others within the company with “out of context screenshots” which eventually did in fact lead to his ban. He says that Twitch Trust and Safety originally concluded the messages were not sexting or in violation of child exploitation federal laws, and he says he did not exchange graphic sexual messages or images with the minor, though Trust and Safety ended up banning him regardless.

He says the minor did not want to escalate things to Twitch. Law enforcement agencies determined “he did nothing wrong” and he won his case over the issue with Twitch. He says it was “just banter” after previously, in the deleted message, saying there were conversations with the minor which “leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.” He claims that Twitch did not look at the age of consent when the messages were received, if that gives you a picture of the kind of technicalities he’s getting into. He made fun of people asking him to release the messages if they were not in fact inappropriate, something he mocked and said “what are we in second grade?”

The Response

These current viewing numbers are inflated, given that no doubt many people simply wanted to see what he would say and what this first stream back would be like. But it’s clear he will have a loyal core of players which is of course, unsettling given that these aren’t just accusations, he admitted to inappropriately contacting a minor and this new explanation of “someone had a grudge and the age of consent where the messages were received is okay” is not exactly changing anything. But much of his crowd is back to “firm handshakes” and showering praise and adoration of “the Two-Time.”

There is nothing preventing Doc from streaming unless he gets flat-out banned from YouTube, which could still happen. But monetization is another open question as nothing has changed since he was demonetized. He can get these donations, but sponsor deals have no doubt all evaporated for the foreseeable future. He was also kicked out of his own game development company.

His entire stream right now is him reading donations and fawning messages from his viewers. I do not recommend watching.

The End of the Road?

There were no apologies. He is fully in character as Doc. He started with a game of Wordle and is now trying to get into the Black Ops 6 beta as I write this.

Beahm’s return to YouTube, in the wake of the controversy, is a prime example of the complex relationship between online platforms and content creators, especially those who have found themselves at the center of controversies. The lack of a full-fledged apology and the framing of the situation as a conspiracy against him raise questions about Beahm’s accountability and whether he has genuinely learned from his past mistakes.