YouTube Suspends Monetization on Dr Disrespect’s Channel “Following Serious Allegations”

YouTube has officially suspended monetization on the channel of Guy Beahm, the popular streamer known as Dr Disrespect, amid continued reports surrounding his 2020 Twitch ban and his alleged sexually explicit messages to a minor.

“We have suspended the DrDisrespect channel from the YouTube Partner Program following serious allegations against the creator,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to IGN. “This action means the channel is no longer able to monetize on YouTube.”

YouTube added that it had taken action against Beahm’s channel “for violating our Creator Responsibility Policy.” The policy, as the spokesperson notes, means that if a creator’s off-platform behavior “harms our users, our employees, or our ecosystem, we can take steps to protect our community, including by suspending monetization. or other channels while their current channel is suspended from the YouTube Partner Program.

YouTube’s confirmation comes after several on social media pointed out Thursday evening that Beahm’s channel no longer had monetization features, including paid subscriptions. This also follows a week of continued new details regarding the circumstances of Beahm’s ban from Twitch in 2020.

Last Friday, former Twitch employee Cody Conners wrote in a post on X/Twitter that Beahm was banned from the streaming platform almost exactly four years ago for “sexting” a minor via Twitch’s Whispers feature and attempted to meet him at TwitchCon (Disclosure: Conners worked briefly at IGN in 2011). Although Conners did not mention Beahm by name, reports in The Verge and Bloomberg confirmed that he was indeed referring to the popular streamer, corroborating Conners’ account and providing more details.

The latest report came out Thursday from Rolling Stone, in which another former Twitch employee told the outlet that Beahm knew the girl he was messaging was underage and continued to send her sexually explicit messages regardless. The report also cites Ryan Wyatt, Google’s former global head of gaming partnerships, who said that YouTube Gaming didn’t offer Beahm a contract due to rumors surrounding his ban from Twitch.

For his part, Beahm released a lengthy statement on Tuesday about the allegations on X/Twitter, admitting that he sent a message to a minor via Twitch Whispers in 2017, and that those messages “sometimes leaned too far toward being inappropriate.” He added, however, that “nothing illegal happened, no photos were shared, no crime was committed,” and also pointed to his 2021 lawsuit against Twitch over the ban, which was resolved in 2022.

Twitch has remained silent on the revelations in recent days despite multiple requests for comment. Today’s statement marks the first public comment on the situation from YouTube, where Beahm has been streaming for several years. Beahm last streamed on Monday, where he indicated he would be taking an extended vacation, but said in his statement Tuesday that he would return.

While it’s rare for YouTube to take such demonetization action against a large channel like Beahm’s, it’s not unprecedented. The platform has previously applied this policy to the channels of other popular creators, including Russell Brand, David Dobrik, and James Charles.

The suspension is just the latest in the ongoing fallout in response to the allegations surrounding Beahm and his ban from Twitch. Previously, partners and sponsors like Turtle Beach, 2K, and the San Francisco 49ers have cut ties with the streamer, and Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded, has also ended its relationship with him.

Thumbnail credit: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

Alex Stedman is a senior news editor at IGN, where she oversees entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons and Dragons.