The 49ers cut ties with a popular video game streamer after he admitted to sending inappropriate messages to a minor back in 2017.
Herschel "Guy" Beahm, known better by his username, Dr Disrespect, gained notoriety as a Twitch streamer during the late 2010s. A California native and former basketball player at Division II Cal Poly, Beahm — a lifelong Niners fan — formed professional ties with his beloved franchise over the past few years.
He's appeared in numerous social media posts for the team, announced San Francisco's third-round selection during the 2022 NFL Draft, featured in a "Sunday Night Football" promo that aired ahead of a Niners-Broncos matchup that took place later that year, and, most recently, fired up the ceremonial foghorn before the 49ers' wild-card round clash with the Seahawks in 2023.
“We take these developments seriously and will not be working with him going forward,” a 49ers spokesperson told San Francisco Gate's Gabe Fernandez.
Here's what you need to know about the allegations surrounding Beahm, as well as his faltering relationship with San Francisco.
Dr Disrespect-49ers ties, explained
Prior to airing his streams on YouTube, Beahm was a Twitch regular. In 2020, however, he was banned from the platform for reasons not made clear to the public. On Friday, a former Twitch employee revealed that Beahm was dropped from the website because he sent sexually explicit messages to a minor through the website's personal message system.
On Tuesday, Beahm admitted he sent messages toward “an individual minor” through Twitch’s personal messaging system in 2017. He acknowledged that the messages "sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate" and divulged that it was those messages that cost him his place on Twitch, as well as some of his sponsorships, including Midnight Society, a gaming studio he co-founded.
On Friday evening we became aware of an allegation against one of our co-founder’s Guy Beahm aka Dr Disrespect.
— Midnight Society (@12am) June 24, 2024
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.…
“Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual,” Beahm wrote in his Tuesday statement, posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.”
“I’m no f— predator or pedophile. Are you kidding me?," Beahm added. "Anyone that [truly] knows me f— knows where I stand on those things with those types of people.”