'Game Grumps' Host Dan Avidan Responds to the Reddit Allegations
Mar. 24 2021, Published 11:46 a.m. ET
Internet gamer and musician Dan Avidan (real name Leigh Daniel Avidan) has been hosting the Let's Play web series Game Grumps alongside Arin Hanson since 2013. The longtime co-hosts film themselves and offer comedic commentary as they play various video games. The show's YouTube channel has racked up more than 5.35 million subscribers over the years, and new videos are posted daily.
Though the hosts often post content that is light in nature, Dan Avidan is now dealing with accusations that stemmed from a Reddit thread.
What happened to Game Grumps? Read on for a breakdown of the allegations and to find out how Dan Avidan himself responded.
What happened to 'Game Grumps'?
On March 21, an anonymous person posted on Reddit about her alleged interactions with Dan Avidan. The thread included screenshots of text messages and a video she said Dan Avidan sent to her. He cannot be seen in the video, but a voice can be heard describing a jacuzzi tub in the speaker's hotel room. The content of the video is sexually explicit.
The woman alleged that she began exchanging text messages with Dan Avidan in 2013 when she was 17. (He would have been 34 at the time.) The two first connected when she shared that she was a fan of his.
The woman claimed that their conversations became sexual in nature once she turned 18. According to her post, they did have a sexual interaction once they met in person in 2017, which was when she was in her 20s. She said that he stopped talking to her after they were intimate.
Though people were accusing Dan Avidan of grooming, neither the messages nor the woman's story indicates that anything sexual occurred until she was of legal age.
About 11 months before this viral Reddit post, several other women shared stories about how Dan Avidan ghosted them.
According to the earlier Reddit thread, Dan Avidan had a pattern of reaching out to women and leading them on to believe that they'd have a monogamous relationship. After having a sexual encounter, he would then stop speaking to them.
None of the women who shared their stories in this thread were underage at the time when these encounters occurred.
Dan Avidan released a statement about the viral Reddit post.
Just a few days after the Reddit post made the rounds online, Dan released a statement to Newsweek.
He denied having a sexual relationship with anyone who was underage. He noted that the woman mentioned in the thread was 22 years old at the time when they became physical.
"I stand by the fact that any interactions that took place of a sexual nature with the person in question were done so when she was 22 years old and we were both consenting adults. To claim I engaged in any predatory behavior is simply untrue," he stated. "I have made mistakes in the past, and I apologize if my actions or words ever made anyone upset, but those mistakes were never ill-intentioned, exploitative, or illegal in any capacity."
Dan Avidan has been in a relationship with Ashley Anderson for several years. He has not shared when exactly he began dating the animator, so it's unclear if they were together when the other alleged encounters took place.
The accusations have not been discussed on the Game Grumps YouTube channel, nor have they been mentioned on the show's official Instagram or Twitter pages.
