Controversial Streamer Suspended From Twitch, Barred From TwitchCon After ‘Harassment’

Controversial Streamer Suspended From Twitch, Barred From TwitchCon After ‘Harassment’

Last week, controversial Twitch streamer Ali “Gross Gore” Larsen landed himself in hot water after attendees of official Runescape convention RuneFest alleged that he’d harassed women and gotten into a physical altercation with another streamer.

Now he says he’s been suspended from Twitch and forbidden from attending TwitchCon, but, he claims, this happened because of a different incident at the Runescape convention.

Larsen, whose Twitch URL now redirects to Twitch’s front page, posted about his suspension yesterday on Twitter.

“Due to past events that happened last week, I’ve been issued a 30-day ban on Twitch & I am NOT allowed to attend Twitchcon,” he said. “No words…”

He also said during his final stream before the suspension that apparently, Twitch was considering a permanent ban of his account, but that “someone at Twitch” had gone to bat for him. Kotaku reached out to Twitch about this and about the terms of Larsen’s suspension, but the company has a policy of not commenting on suspensions or bans.

In the wake of RuneFest, multiple women accused Larsen of making sexual comments towards them and, according to one account, continuing to do so even after being told to stop. One person posted a video in which Larsen appeared to grab a woman’s face in an attempt to kiss her.

A fellow streamer, Skiddler, said that his attempt to address these claims with Larsen escalated to the point of a full-on physical confrontation in which Larsen was the aggressor.

In response, Larsen agreed that a physical struggle had occurred, but claimed that Skiddler had gone after him—not the other way around. He also said harassment claims were “overblown,” that he has a “flirty” personality, and also that the woman Skiddler was sticking up for was wearing “a really, really, really revealing top,” which prompted him to comment on it.

“That’s life,” Larsen said at the time. “If I drove around in a Ferrari, then people would comment on the Ferrari. That’s just the way people are. And I apologise if the woman took offence.”

The incident led Runescape developer and RuneFest host Jagex to say that it would not be working with “the content creators concerned” in the future, and that “we will not be working with them, or inviting them to future events, going forward.” The company did not specifically name any names.

Oddly enough, Larsen says that female attendees’ harassment allegations and the fight with Skiddler were not the straws that broke the Twitch emote of a camel’s back. Instead, he claims the ban came about because of a comparatively innocuous clip from the same event, in which he is depicted shouting “Let’s make some drama, lads!” and following somebody in a crowd around on his knees.

“Last week at an event, there’s a clip of me, on my knees, following a streamer and being a bit immature,” Larsen said in a YouTube video explaining his Twitch suspension.

“I really am sorry. This was deemed as harassment, and there is no tolerance with harassment when it comes to Twitch. So I really am sorry to the streamer that was offended and anybody else that was offended.”


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