Meyers Leonard dropped by basketball team and sponsors after using antisemitic slur in Call of Duty stream

Meyers Leonard's Twitch logo
(Image credit: Twitch)

Footage of NBA player and Twitch streamer Meyers Leonard using an antisemitic slur while streaming Call of Duty went viral recently, prompting him to apologize. Since then, his team the Miami Heat has issued a statement saying that he's off the team indefinitely.

"The Miami HEAT vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech", the team statement says. "The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise. To hear it from a Miami HEAT player is especially disappointing and hurtful to all those who work here, as well as the larger South Florida, Miami Heat and NBA communities.

"Meyers Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely. The Miami HEAT will cooperate with the NBA while it conducts its investigation."

NBA spokesman Mike Bass said, "We just became aware of the video and are in the process of gathering more information. The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech." 

Meanwhile, Leonard has also been dropped by several of his channel's sponsors, with Astro Gaming, as well as Origin PC and Scuf Gaming (both owned by Corsair) all announcing the end of their working relationships with him. 

Esports organization FaZe Clan has also distanced itself from Leonard, writing on Twitter that, "We were incredibly disappointed to hear Meyers' stream today. FaZe does not tolerate hate speech or discriminatory language of any kind. While Meyers is not a member of FaZe, we are cutting ties with him."

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Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.