As the Twitch Rivals’ League of Legends draft played out, League of Legends streamer Jayden “YourPrincess” Diaz was one of the eight captains putting together their team. This quickly led to an uproar within the LoL community as viewers and participants alike demanded that she be removed from the event.
On January 11, YourPrincess announced her roster. But some members of it stated that they would drop out of the tournament instead of competing alongside YourPrincess. Michael “MikeYeung” Yeung, Kishan “Dragoon” Maktaki, and Yanni “LL Stylish” Azamoum were those players that cited YourPrincess as the primary reason they refused to further participate in Twitch Rivals. YourPrincess would later choose to step down from her captaincy, but it was a messy process that left some fans angry and others confused.
What happened with YourPrincess?
In 2020, hundreds of streamers and pro players were accused of various forms of sexual misconduct by mostly female victims. During that time, YourPrincess claimed streamer and LoL player Jean-Sebastien “Tuesday” Thery had so harassed her. But after Tuesday’s thorough response, the streaming community gathered that YourPrincess had made up the allegations given Tuesday’s evidence he provided against them.
What frustrated the streaming community even more was YourPrincess’ overall silence once she was called out for allegedly lying. Angry with how YourPrincess had handled the situation, the League of Legends community started to spam YourPrincess about Tuesday throughout Twitter and Twitch. During the Twitch Rivals broadcast itself, Tuesday became a banned word due to how often people were bringing up the false accusations made against him.
— Jean Sebastien (@Tuesday_lol) January 11, 2021
As the harassment continued and her teammates started to drop out, YourPrincess decided to talk to the Twitch Rivals organizers. She told them she wanted to drop out of the event.
“I want them to get a replacement captain in light of everything,” YourPrincess said.
Even though YourPrincess left the tournament, the official Twitch broadcast only furthered fueled the harassment. Many called her out for quickly addressing the Twitch Rivals controversy but continuing to avoid talking about the situation that had caused it to begin with. It seemed to a lot of people that she had never apologized properly after her accusations against Tuesday seemed to have been disproven.
YourPrincess explained that she never “lied” about what happened with Tuesday, stating that the community was twisting what happened. Still, she again stated that she had apologized for the situation, though it never seemed quite good enough for the League of Legends community at large.
I did not lie about what I shared publicly, however the community continues to twist as they wish. I apologized for making it public and how it affected many people around me especially Tuesday because I needed to own up to that.
— Jayden (@YourPrincess) January 12, 2021
“It was a learning experience for me,” YourPrincess said when a fan accused her of ignoring what she had done. “I chose to ignore it because I was listening to the adults and guidance around me. However, I did immediately apologize but stated I didn’t want to make it anymore publicly. Thanks for your advice.”
On social media, League of Legends fans continued to argue that YourPrincess had never properly apologized. Instead, she would discuss the accusations without directly saying that she was sorry for making them. While YourPrincess has repeatedly noted that she apologized to Tuesday privately, the community at large seems quite confident that the streamer has no remorse.
Fan anger comes not only from the potential damage that could have been done to Tuesday’s career, but also with the damage that can be done to the credibility of real accusers when someone like YourPrincess is seemingly shown to have lied and to have used the movement to advance self-interests.
