Former Overwatch League flex support Ryu “Ryujehong” Jehong is under fire after making a series of sexist and offensive comments during a weekend stream.
Considered a veteran of the competitive Overwatch scene, Ryujehong played in the Overwatch League for three years, spending two years as flex support for the Seoul Dynasty and half a season with the Vancouver Titans. He was recently signed as a content creator for Gen.G Esports, which owns the Seoul Dynasty.
On Jan. 16, Ryujehong streamed alongside a female streamer known as Haegi who mainly plays League of Legends and creates casual Just Chatting content on Twitch. During the stream, in which he appeared drunk, Ryujehong made numerous sexist, degrading, and offensive comments towards his fellow streamer.
According to community translators, Ryujehong repeatedly referred to his co-streamer as a “bitch” and berated her for interrupting him, saying women shouldn’t speak when men are talking.
He referred to women with the Korean derogatory term for “gold digger,” which translates to “fox bitch” or “kimchi bitch,” and said that women shouldn’t be trusted. At one point, Ryujehong apparently said if he had a younger sister, he would “harass her more than this” and then demanded the streamer bring him a drink using derogatory language.
Ryujehong has deleted the video recording of the stream, but his co-streamer still has the video archived to her channel.
Later, in his stream Discord, Ryujehong addressed some of his comments. According to another community translator, Ryujehong claimed the use of “fox” was a meme but also admits to drinking during the stream and that the incident was “his fault.”
On Jan. 17, Ryujehong released a statement about his actions on stream.
While he apologized to viewers that felt discomfort watching the stream, he doubled down on his use of “streamer/Twitch memes” and building a chat atmosphere. He said he will use bots and moderators to watch over the stream to make it more enjoyable, but noted it will remain a “free area” for thoughts and ideas.
Multiple posts on Reddit appeared in defense of Ryujehong, saying the stream was taken out of context and that Haegi and Ryujehong were bantering as friends. Haegi apparently addressed the incident on her Twitch stream, saying that she also swore at him and that she didn’t understand the controversy.
For the past few months, Ryujehong has been interviewing top players and friends for the “Nano” series on the Overwatch League’s Korean YouTube channel. He had also been creating content related to Gen.G, but only formally signed with the company on Jan. 11.
Update Jan. 19 8:45am CT: Ryujehong posted an apology to his Instagram account after deleting the rest of his content on the site. In the statement, he apologized for his actions and for disappointing his fans.
The original community translator who did in-depth translations of this stream transcript made their posts private due to harassment from the community. An anonymous source has re-translated the content and has been linked for reference instead. Additional information from various Reddit posts, as well as Haegi’s response, has also been added.
Update Jan. 19 2:00pm CT: Gen. G has suspended Ryujehong from all “team-related activities” indefinitely.
