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Meyers Leonard, a reserve center for the Miami Heat, will be “indefinitely absent from the team,” the team said Tuesday night, following his use of an anti-Semitic slur while playing a video game on a public livestream.
“The Miami HEAT vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech,” the team said in a statement. “The words Meyers Leonard used were wrong and we will not tolerate any hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise. Hearing it from a Miami Heat player is particularly disappointing and hurtful for everyone who works here, as well as for the larger communities of South Florida, Miami Heat and the NBA.
Leonard, 29, was playing “Call Of Duty: Warzone,” a popular multiplayer video game, on Twitch, a live streaming platform populated mostly by gamers.
Leonard said the insult, followed by sexist vulgarity, after calling another player a “coward” because of the way they tried to kill his character in the game. The video was recorded on Monday but didn’t received wide attention on Tuesday, after the clip of Leonard delivering the insult was posted on social media. In the afternoon, it was the hottest topic on Twitter in the United States.
As the video of Leonard saying the insult was circulating, Leonard was live streaming a different session of “Call of Duty: Warzone,” an event he promoted on Tuesday on his Twitter account, which has more than 177,000 followers. The live chat on this stream began to fill with comments about the insult, and Leonard hastily ended his participation after receiving a phone call.
“My wife needs me. She just called. I have to ride, brother, ” Leonard said as he signed.
The Twitter post announcing his livestream was quickly deleted, as were dozens of past videos of him playing on Twitch. Leonard’s comments were quickly condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, which written in a statement that he was “shocked and disappointed to see @MeyersLeonard use that ugly and offensive #antisemitic insult.” We reached out to @MiamiHEAT and @NBA about it and urge Mr. Leonard to immediately apologize for this blatant and hateful rhetoric.
Leonard apologized on Tuesday night in a statement posted to Instagram, writing that he was “deeply sorry for using an anti-Semitic slur during a live broadcast yesterday.” He claimed that he did not know what the word he was using meant, but said his “ignorance of its history and its offensive nature to the Jewish community is absolutely no excuse and I was simply wrong” .
It is not yet clear what discipline, if any, Leonard will face from the NBA Mike Bass, an NBA spokesperson, said in an afternoon statement: “We just took knowledge of the video and are collecting more information. The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech. The Heat said they would cooperate with the NBA investigation.
Leonard is a huge fan of video games. In 2019, he invested in FaZe Clan, a popular esports team, write that he was “thrilled to be part of the premier organization in the industry and to continue to build my brand in the gaming / esports world.”
But that mark was unmistakably tarnished on Tuesday. Leonard’s channel has been suspended by Twitch – “We do not allow the use of hate speeches on Twitch,” the company said in a statement – and a number of game companies affiliated with Leonard have denounced it .
In a report posted on twitter, FaZe Clan said he was “incredibly disappointed to hear the Meyers feed today” and that “although Meyers is not a member of FaZe, we are severing ties with him.” A FaZe Clan spokeswoman did not respond to an email asking what the severing of ties with Leonard meant and whether FaZe Clan was returning its investment.
Three game companies who sponsored Leonard and had their logos visible on the feed where he used the insult, have severed ties with him.
Origin PC and Scuf Gaming, both owned by computer hardware company Corsair, issued identical statements Tuesday that they “have decided to end our working relationship with Meyers.” Astro Gaming, whose gaming headsets Leonard offered on their Twitch channel, mentionned he was ending his relationship with him “with immediate effect.”
Leonard, a 2012 Portland Trail Blazers first-round pick, is in his ninth season in the NBA, but has only played three games this season. He is set to miss the rest of the season after undergoing shoulder surgery last month. Last season, Leonard started 49 games for the Heat, averaging 6.1 points and 5.1 rebounds per game as the team advanced to the finals.
He also drew attention last summer for being one of the few NBA players who refused to kneel down while playing the national anthem, in protest against racial injustice, when the league resumed the 2019-20 season at Walt Disney World. Leonard, who is white, said he supports the Black Lives Matter movement and does not consider kneeling disrespectful, but also wants to honor his brother, who served in the military.
Leonard is paid around $ 9.4 million this season. The Heat have the option of extending their contract for next season.
Online video game streaming – and its rapidly expanding audience – has turned gamers into celebrities, but has also become a site of controversy. The audio and text chat features in many video games are known for frequent insulting statements and a culture in which gamers will say anything to get a reaction. In 2017, Felix Kjellberg, a popular video player known as PewDiePie who currently has over 109 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, was dropped by many mainstream sponsors, like Disney, after he was reported. that he had used anti-Semitic slurs in at least nine videos.
Later that year, after using a different insult when streaming a game live, the phrase “heated game moment” entered the lexicon as an excuse for using derogatory language when streaming. live video games.
Celebrities, and especially athletes like Phoenix Suns goalie Devin Booker and San Diego Padres pitcher Blake Snell, have been drawn to live video games. But some also got into trouble for what they said. Last spring, Kyle Larson, a popular NASCAR driver, was fired from his team and suspended by the organization after using a racial slur during a livestream of a virtual race.
Marc Stein contribution to reports.
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