LOS ANGELES — After two instances of anti-sex-worker discrimination last week, Adriana Chechik has been reinstated to gaming platform Twitch and has received an apology from Epic Games, makers of Fortnite.
Last Thursday, Chechik revealed on camera that she had been banned from a Twitch event shortly before its kickoff.
“There’s two types of approval processes that you have to go through for these competitions,” a visibly emotional Chechik explained to her fans. “The first approval is Twitch Rivals, and Twitch approving you. The second one is the game company that’s hosting the event, and I guess last night they decided to not approve me because of my adult work. Because of my past and my adult work, I’ve been bumped from it.”
“Epic Games didn’t approve of my background,” Chechik added, on the verge of tears. “But this is fine. I’m used to this, so that’s fine.”
For the past few years, Chechik has been steadily rebranding away from her adult career and towards gaming and mental health advocacy.
On Friday, after mainstream media reported on Chechik's experience of discrimination, she was reportedly banned from Twitch, apparently for wearing a translucent outfit with pasties underneath. However, she has since been reinstated to the gaming platform.
Meanwhile, the official Twitter account for Fortnite publicly apologized to Chechik, saying, “We're so sorry this happened. The request to @TwitchRivals was to work with you to remove adult references from your stream's background due to our game's rating. We have no issue with you participating in events or streaming Fortnite.”
As gaming site SVG noted, “In the aftermath of both her ban from Twitch and her not being allowed to participate in the Twitch Rivals ‘Fortnite’ event, Chechik received a massive amount of support from those who claimed that both Twitch and Epic Games were operating under a double standard. @Yelashot on Twitter pointed out that other streamers have worn nothing but body paint without receiving bans in the past, while others posted clips of rather ‘suggestive’ dances being present on ‘Fortnite.’”
