Beahm, 42, had around 4 million followers and a lucrative streaming deal on Twitch at the time of his ban. He now streams to 4.73 million YouTube subscribers. Twitch and YouTube did not respond to requests for comment. (Twitch is owned by Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The explicit messages and their connection to the ban were reported this week by Bloomberg News and the Verge, based on accounts from anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter. The reports followed a similar account posted Friday by Cody Conners, a former employee at Twitch who did not name Beahm in the post.
In his post Tuesday, Beahm said in part: “Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual.” According to his post’s edit history on X, Beahm initially wrote that the person was an “individual minor,” removed “minor,” and later added it back in.
“Now from a moral standpoint, I’ll absolutely take responsibility,” Beahm wrote in the post. “I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with. That’s on me. That’s on me as an adult, a husband and a father.” He added that he is not a “predator or pedophile.” Attempts to reach Beahm on Tuesday were not successful.
In a 2020 interview with The Washington Post, shortly after the ban, Beahm claimed Twitch’s decision was “a total shock” and said he didn’t know why he was kicked from the platform. He said in 2022 that he settled a lawsuit against the company, adding that “no party admits to any wrongdoing.”
Since the allegation surfaced Friday, some of Beahm’s business partnerships have dissolved. He co-founded a video game studio in 2021 called Midnight Society. On Monday, the studio said on X that it “assumed his innocence and began speaking with parties involved” and that it is terminating its ties with Beahm immediately. On Tuesday, popular gaming accessories company Turtle Beach confirmed it is not continuing its partnership with him.
Beahm’s disclosure ends a four-year mystery for the public on why Twitch broke its multiyear contract with him in 2020. The deal had been an emblem of an era when streaming platforms began signing content creators like athletes for multimillion-dollar exclusive contracts. Beahm’s contract lasted only a few months before Twitch broke ties.