Pokimane claims Twitch staff member faked relationship with her to manipulate other women

Pokimane has claimed that a Twitch employee used his connection to her to “manipulate” women in her community, faking a romantic relationship with her.

In March 2023, Pokimane revealed that a professional in the streaming industry faked a romantic relationship with her for the purpose of this manipulation, but didn’t reveal who the person was or who they worked for.

On her April 19 episode of the Sweet n Sour podcast with fellow streamer LilyPichu, she revealed more details.

In the podcast episode, Poki alleged that the man worked for Twitch in a position focused on public safety and was a moderator on her channel.

Twitch: pokimane

Pokimane reveals Twitch incident

“There was this guy who worked at Twitch,” she said to start the story. “He specifically worked in the security, safety department. He helped code all the things that helped streamers, like automod. He also worked with a lot of streamers, including myself and many of our friends. Because of that, he was really reputable, had a pretty good network… he was also one of my mods.”

Poki added that the man in question worked alongside many female streamers, and worked to take down communities online that would post inappropriate things about them.

However, in 2023, her manager and lawyer revealed that the man was faking a sexual and romantic relationship with Pokimane, and using the fake relationship as a means to manipulate other women.

“What he would do is he would approach women in my community, and because he was connected to a bunch of streamers, he seemed like a really reputable person,” she said. “He would start building a friendship with them, and then start talking about how depressed he is or how suicidal he is. He would garner these girls’ sympathy, and they would help him.

“Then he would start talking about this fake relationship that he and I had. He would talk about how I was emotionally, romantically, and otherwise abusing him. He would say that we would meet up at hotels at TwitchCon.”

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Pokimane said that she never actually met the man in person, and that he was sending girls screenshots of edited conversations between the two.

“Once he would gain their sympathy, he would start pretending ‘Poki says this kind of stuff to me, we secretly have this kind of relationship’ and obviously the girls are like ‘Oh my god, she’s treating you so terribly, this is wrong.’

“He would take the normal conversations we would have on Discord, and then he would photoshop other lines about very, very inappropriate stuff… like legit ‘come to my hotel’ type of stuff. This is someone I’ve never met. After he builds this idea in the girls’ heads long enough, he’ll start trying to make himself look like a victim so that they want to save him from me. Then, he’ll try to get into romantic relationships with them.”

According to the streamer, his actions started to tread the lines of sexual manipulation or extortion, and he would even send the girls fake, inappropriate photos of her in an attempt to get them to send him photos. Since he worked at Twitch, she says the man would also share her revenue with women.

After sharing the story, Pokimane revealed that because the man was so connected to the platform and her community, the “safe space” she built online was “completely tarnished.”

“I did not feel safe pushing the start stream button knowing someone in my near vicinity was able to manipulate people in my community to that degree,” she said. “I really ruined streaming for me for a long time. It took a long time to feel safe doing it again.”

After hearing the news, the star and her manager went to Twitch to report the incident. They opened an investigation that lasted two months, and during that time, she had to keep the man integrated into her community to avoid alerting him to the investigation.

During that time, the man shared in her group chat that he was moving on from his position after getting a job at Riot. After the investigation ended, however, Pokimane says she called Riot to warn them about his actions.

The streamer says that after the man was fired, she reached out to all the women involved to show that the messages he sent them were photoshopped. She also added that if those involved ever felt worried about their safety in the future, she would pay for security.

After consulting with her lawyer, Pokimane said that there wasn’t much she could legally pursue him for.