Former Smash pro ZeRo resolves defamation lawsuit with ex-roommate, will return to content creation

In November of 2021, former Super Smash Bros. pro Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios filed a lawsuit against his former roommate Jacqueline “Jisu” Choe for defamation, due to sexual msconduct allegations Choe made against Barrios. Today, Barrios announced in a YouTube video that he and his legal team had reached a settlement with Choe, formally ending the legal proceedings.

Furthermore, Barrios stated his intentions to return to content creation following the settlement reached in his lawsuit. 

This planned return to creating content includes making YouTube videos on his channel with more than 900,000 subscribers again and attempting a social media campaign to get his Twitch account back, following it being banned after the original allegations were made against him in 2020. 

The original allegations revolved around the now-infamous “Sky House,” a series of homes rented by content creator Sky Williams where multiple Super Smash Bros. pros and content creators lived—and from which multiple sexual misconduct allegations emerged in 2020. These allegations included claims that Barrios showed Choe explicit imagery and videos against her wishes, that he solicited sexual acts from a third party while said third party was a minor, and that Barrios’ wife, who was his girlfriend at the time, was a minor when the pair began dating.

In the video, Barrios displays a joint statement from himself and Jisu, which acknowledges that Jisu “did not view her time at the Sky House or interactions with Mr. Barrios in the same way” as Barrios, and includes an apology from Barrios to Choe for his role in her feeling “harassed and demeaned.” That document also includes a retraction from Choe of her previous allegations regarding Barrios and his wife, which “were not accurate,” according to the settlement statement. 

The statement concludes with Choe and Barrios agreeing to resolve the lawsuit. The resolution follows a report by Jacob Wolf from August of this year that the two parties were nearing a settlement, following an L.A. court striking three out of the four allegations of defamation from the case for being outside of the California statute of limitations.

Barrios goes further in his video, explaining that Choe retracted and deleted all of her previous allegations made against Barrios as part of the settlement. In addition, Barrios explains in his video that the sexual misconduct allegations made against him by a different party have not been resolved due to his legal team’s inability to contact the party that made said allegations, but that he denies those allegations and has evidence to support his innocence in the matter.

It remains to be seen if Barrios will be successful in potentially appealing his ban on Twitch, but for the time being, he says that he will resume regularly updating his YouTube channels.