Call of Duty voice actor Jeff Leach has offered some new insight on the curious case of Dr Disrespect’s Twitch ban. The popular livestreamer was banned last summer in a sudden and jarring move, though Dr Disrespect has maintained that the reasons why were never explained to him.
Dr Disrespect, aka Guy Beahm, is a former Call of Duty developer himself and designed some of the maps in Advanced Warfare. The dev eventually made the move to become an entertainer but has been no stranger to controversies. The influencer had what is arguably his biggest moment of controversy when he livestreamed inside of a bathroom at E3, leading to a temporary ban. None of this was ever enough to sway Twitch from actually disassociating with Dr Disrespect as they’d usually continue to promote him after a bit of a time out. That changed last year, for some mysterious reason.
Jeff Leach, who played Ghost in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, noted in an interview with DanAllenGaming he had heard rumors of what had happened with Dr Disrespect via people he knew that had worked at Twitch, most notably suggesting it came as a result of Mixer’s closure. “What I have heard through various people who work at Twitch is that when it came to renegotiation time for his contract and he was using offers from Mixer as leverage to get himself a bit more money out of Twitch,” said Leach before doubling down that it’s all alleged and he can’t be 100% sure but believed it to be credible.
These talks were going on right before Mixer announced it was shutting down, which Leach believes led Twitch to think Dr Disrespect was lying about an offer. After all, why would a company that is shutting down offer someone millions of dollars to come stream for a couple of days or weeks? Twitch reportedly took offense to this after sticking by the controversial streamer for years and helping him build his career, even using him as one of its key streamers after Ninja departed for Mixer. The timeline does seem to add up as Mixer announced its closure roughly a week prior to the ban. Some speculated there were legal implications around his disappearance, but given he has moved to another platform and continues to stream, it’s likely he’s just fine.
The only people who probably definitely know what happened are Dr Disrespect himself and Twitch. Whether or not anything ever actually comes to light officially is unknown, but for now, this is one of the more feasible and relatively concrete explanations for the bizarre situation. For now, Dr Disrespect is on YouTube where he doesn’t seem to have skipped a beat.
