Olivia R. November 12, 2020
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Owen "smooya" Butterfield took to Twitter to apologize for his past behavior.
"Made too many mistakes in my career outside of the game which has heavily messed with my career in the game," smooya tweeted.
He then apologized to those who "wanted the best" for him.
smooya is currently unsigned after having previously joined c0ntact Gaming on a trial basis. He's been playing CSGO professionally since 2016, including a stint with Chaos Esports Club. His goal is to become a main AWPer for a top professional team, but smooya hasn't been playing for a team since mid-October.
He may be starting to feel the effects of his poor behavior.
CSGO fans aren't too convinced that smooya's apology is genuine, noting that he's sent out similar tweets in the past. smooya has been banned on Twitch for using offensive homophobic, racist, and sexist language.
The FACEIT Pro League also banned smooya in February of 2019 for toxic behavior towards another player, Ismail “refrezh” Ali. smooya had called refrezh a "fucking bitch" and even told him to "kill himself" for allegedly not trying hard enough in a match that led to overtime.
smooya tweeted that he "didn't agree" with what he had said about refrezh and was taking a week to relax.
"I don't think it's right in any way. This isn't a reflection on my team. It's on me," smooya said.
But his apology's authenticity was already being questioned last year. Before that incident, smooya was called "disrespectful" by former mousesports captain Chris "chrisJ" de Jong for his toxic in-game antics while he was a part of the team.