Steven R. November 29, 2018
A Black Friday charity live stream held by Fortnite star Tyler “Ninja” Blevins took an unfortunate turn.
During Ninja’s broadcast in support of Ellen Degerenes’ charity The Ellen Fund, Ninja was seemingly joined on-air by famous rapper Drake, with the two partying up and playing a duo game.
Shortly into the match, however, Ninja’s teammate began shouting racial epithets over voice chat in what was likely a result of account hacking. Ninja was quick to exit the game, but by that point, the troll’s mission had been accomplished.
In March, Ninja was famously joined by Drake during a stream, with the pair’s Fortnite session breaking Twitch viewership records and propelling Ninja into mainstream visibility. They played together one more time after that, but had a falling out in July after Ninja questioned Drake’s reasons for joining him during the broadcast. They have not played or publicly communicated on social media since.
Ninja was initially perplexed by the invitation to party up with Drake, who plays under the handle Duddus647, and wondered aloud whether it was intentional. Things became suspicious when the game started and the player on Drake’s account remained silent. Those concerns were ultimately proven valid shortly after.
Neither Ninja nor Drake have issued a statement or acknowledged the incident on social media. Degeneres did not comment either, but thanked Ninja for helping to drive donations on Twitter the next day.
The charity stream continued after the incident, with Ninja’s viewers ultimately raising more than $52,000. The money will go towards conservation efforts to protect endangered animal species.