Dr Disrespect has become one of the most popular live streamers on the planet. The 39-year-old gamer amassed over four million followers on Twitch before being booted off the platform last year. Despite the ban, he’s still busy entertaining millions of subscribers on YouTube. So we have to wonder, how big of an impact has the Twitch controversy had on his overall earnings? Let’s take a deep dive into Dr Disrespect’s net worth to find out.
Dr Disrespect’s Real Name Is Herschel ‘Guy’ Beahm IV
Born Herschel Beahm IV (and nicknamed “Guy”) on March 10th, 1982, Dr Disrespect graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in 2005. As a young adult, he worked for a number of big gaming companies, including Sledgehammer Games. He helped design and develop maps for Call of Duty.
While he was working at Sledgehammer, Beahm joined Twitch as Dr Disrespect — a name he had previously used on YouTube back in the early 2010s. He started to build a following, which led him to quit Sledgehammer in 2015 to focus full-time on his career as a gamer. While he was excited to see where live streaming would take him, Beahm admitted that the transition wasn’t easy at first.
“There was certainly an adjustment period,” he said in a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone. “My working experience prior to streaming had always consisted of being a part of big teams, employed by big companies. Committing to streaming full-time meant I was going to be self-employed. That was the biggest adjustment. Being self-employed, I know I have to have a lot of discipline when it comes to scheduling, managing of costs, and being aware of everything related to the brand.”
Fortunately for Beahm, the shift was successful, thanks in large part to the entertaining, sunglasses-and-mullet-wearing persona he adopted as Dr Disrespect. Viewers loved the character’s quick-witted and aggressive nature, and by 2018, Dr Disrespect had become a full-blown Twitch star.
Despite his rise to internet fame, Beahm tried to stay as grounded as possible when he wasn’t gaming as Dr Disrespect.
“I don’t really consider myself famous in any fashion,” he told Rolling Stone. “To me, I’m just goofing off on camera for six to eight hours a day. That’s what it literally feels like. And when I’m done, I’m downstairs with my daughter and beautiful wife, disconnected from the online world.”
He Was Permanently Banned From Twitch In 2020
As his success on Twitch grew, Dr Disrespect scored lucrative sponsorship deals with brands like Gillette, ASUS, and Mountain Dew. In 2020, he signed a two-year exclusivity deal with Twitch for a (likely enormous) undisclosed sum.
But just two months later, the star was suddenly banned from the platform, and his brand-new contract was voided. For Beahm and his four million followers, the move was completely unexpected.
“Honestly, we just don’t know,” he told The Washington Post in a 2020 interview when asked why Twitch had given him the boot. “It was a total shock. Imagine showing up to work and the doors are closed and you can’t get inside. You’re going, ‘What’s going on?’ And you’ve been told you’ve been fired. But you haven’t been told the reason why. We just weren’t given an answer. … It was the worst feeling.”
Twitch has never fully explained why they decided to part ways with Dr Disrespect, but they did issue the following statement:
“As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Dr Disrespect had butted heads with Twitch in the past, so it’s likely the platform had just decided they had enough of his controversial antics. In addition to being criticized for mocking a Chinese accent, he was suspended from Twitch for two weeks in 2019 after live streaming from inside a public bathroom, which violated privacy laws.
While the streamer insisted that he didn’t intend to cause any harm with the stunt, he admitted in retrospect that he understood why filming from a bathroom was out of line.
“If my kid was in there, I wouldn’t want him to be filmed by this guy and his camera crew, and it actually goes out, it’s a live stream. It could have been a lot worse,” he said in a 2020 interview with The Verge.
What Is Dr Disrespect’s Net Worth In 2021?
When Dr Disrespect was removed from Twitch, all of his paid subscribers were refunded their money, which must have affected the gamer’s bottom line. Currently, Dr Disrespect is worth an estimated $3.5 million. That’s nowhere near some of his peers, like PewDiePie or Ninja, whose net worths are eight figures. Still, it’s nothing to scoff at, and the superstar streamer continues to make good money from his over-the-top gaming persona.
Because his exclusivity deal with Twitch was voided as a result of the ban, Dr Disrespect was able to continue live streaming on YouTube, where he’s just as popular as he was on Twitch. Currently, he has more than 3.3 million subscribers on the platform.
Dr Disrespect also earns revenue from endorsements and reportedly scored a development deal for an animated TV series. He also released a memoir-style book written in the voice of the Dr Disrespect character.
So while the Twitch ban may have slowed him down a bit, Dr Disrespect seems to be doing just fine as far as income is concerned!