Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm was one of the biggest streamers on Twitch when the Amazon-owned streaming platform permanently banned him in mid-2020. The suddenness of the high-profile ejection, coupled with both Beahm and Twitch staying silent over what had actually happened and why, turned the incident into the most infamous and mysterious ban in the platform’s history. Now everyone’s talking about it again after a former Twitch employee recently purported to share the real alleged reason why Beahm got sent packing.
A former Sledgehammer Games community manager turned streamer, Beahm built the Dr Disrespect 80s action star persona from a black wig and sunglasses into a channel with millions of subscribers while streaming games like PUBG: Battlegrounds and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. He took a break from streaming after revealing he’d cheated on his wife before returning in 2018 with an even bigger audience than before. Even prior to his permanent ban, the streamer was controversial for crossing boundaries, including broadcasting live from inside a bathroom at E3 2019.
By early 2020, as the pandemic was just starting, he was even dabbling in covid trutherism, sharing claims with viewers that hospital overcrowding was overblown and total lockdowns were an overreaction. But Beahm was still one of the most popular personalities on the platform at a time when Twitch was in a bitter talent war with competitor YouTube. He had just recently re-signed with Twitch for a rep.