Facebook Gaming has terminated its partner status contracts with both Jeff Leach and NitroLukeDX following a spat between the two British content creators.
NitroLukeDX, aka Luke Pickering, first published a video on May 7th containing several foul-mouthed clips of Jeff Leach, accusing him of sexism (which Jeff says were taken out-of-context), followed by a discussion panel between women gamers denouncing his behaviour.
Call of Duty publisher Activision had previously stopped working with Jeff Leach (not over this incident), who is the voice of Ghost in recent Call of Duty games. He recently announced he would be taking legal action against NitroLukeDX for what he called an ‘out-of-context assassination of someone’s character’.
Both content creators have shared clips of one another speaking rudely of others in streams. Now, both of them – who have channels on Facebook – have lost their Facebook Gaming partner status.
“We expect our Facebook Gaming partners to model a high standard of conduct,” Facebook said in a statement sent to Esports News UK yesterday evening. “We have ended our contract with Jeff Leach and terminated his partner status with Facebook Gaming. We’ve done the same with NitroLukeDX due to his behaviour on prior streams.”
Esports News UK understands Luke will still be able to stream on Facebook, just without his partner status. He may also consider streaming on other platforms like YouTube.
The news comes after Dexerto reported that sponsors are also dropping Jeff Leach. Team Kitchen and Sneak Energy have both ended their deals with him.
Streamer ZombiUnicorn, who took a stand on Jeff’s behaviour in the past, and said they have received sexist abuse from him, also sent an updated statement to Esports News UK. A clip from 2017 of Jeff speaking in a derogatory manner about ZombiUnicorn saw him banned on Twitch at the time.
ZombiUnicorn told Esports News UK: “I have no desire to continue discussing or addressing anything to do with Leach again. I said my piece about his behaviours and those like him and asked companies to be accountable for allowing people with influence to normalise that prejudice on their platforms. And I’m grateful Facebook, Activision and other companies took a stand.
“The conversation about misogyny and prejudice in gaming is much larger than him. No one is perfect, but people who take accountability and work to be better aren’t the problem. It’s those who deny wrongdoing and continue to harm others.”
Esports News UK has reached out to Jeff Leach and NitroLukeDX and will update this article with further info as we receive it.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
