Wow. Just. Wow.
It’s never great when a professional ends their career due to a scandal. But it’s even worse when the cause is a completely offensive racist rant. But that is exactly what happened to Matt “Dellor” Vaughn, professional Overwatch player with Toronto Esports.
He was playing a ranked match Saturday and was killed by an enemy, and this set him off. He then proceeded to scream out a derogatory racial slur for 30 seconds over the game’s voice chat system. It was actually captured by a viewer who was present and it was posted to Youtube. You can check out the full blown racist tantrum below.
WARNING: The video is below and is loud, offensive, and contains racial slurs.
As a result, Vaughn’s contract was terminated Sunday for breach of contract. Toronto Esports cited that it was directly linked to the incident. “Dellor used abusive and discriminatory racial language while streaming. Toronto Esports is an organization built on inclusivity, and we have always had a zero-tolerance policy for any forms of discrimination.”
Vaughn issued his own statement via Twitter, where he expressed his remorse. He stated, “I fucked up and deserve to be dropped from Toronto Esports”. However, he seems to not understand exactly why it was offensive and not acceptable.
He lists numerous reasons why this happene; he was tired, his internet was lagging, the Widowmaker was cheating, and he was angry… so he said the most offensive thing he could think of. Instead of acknowledging that what he said was offensive to black people. Well done dude.
His Twitch channel was shut down as well for violations of service. And it seems all of this, with the combination of being dropped from his team was enough. He has announced via Twitter he will be retiring from esports.