#anyway ryan haywood is a piece of shit and belongs in jail and thats that on that

[chikkou]

masterpost on the ryan haywood (and adam kovic) situation

so i already made this post as a more general “whats wrong with rooster teeth” post, as i honestly didnt expect the ryan haywood/adam kovic situation to go as far as it has - but at this point i think it’s much more prudent to put that information into its own post because the situation with both of these men, ryan primarily, has gone off the fucking rails 

tl;dr for the situation: ryan haywood and adam kovic both had nudes leak and were outed as cheating on their wives as a result of being catfished, but a great deal more information surfaced after the initial leak which led to the discovery that ryan haywood is a manipulative sexual predator, and adam kovic may have been sending sexual pictures and videos of his wife without her consent. 

i will try to break down this post chronologically as best i can and provide ample sources, and i will update it as new information is gathered. please be aware that many of these sources will be coming from kiwifarms, as it has gathered all of the relevant info into one place, but i will not be linking to the thread directly for a myriad of reasons, so if you want to find it, youll have to look for yourself. apologies if any of the screenshots contain disagreeable language; i wouldnt link them if they werent relevant.

general tw for pretty much everything in this post. all pictures of people will be largely sfw, but there will be nsfw text under the cut. i will not link to any nudes of ryan or adam. this is going to be long as fuck.

here goes.

NOTE: this post is currently up-to-date as of january 28th, 7:27 pm (EST). 

GENERAL BACKGROUND:

adam kovic and ryan haywood are both employees at the entertainment company rooster teeth. ryan has been working there since 2011, originally for more behind-the-scenes work before becoming a regular achievement hunter staple, while adam kovic was a personality who originally worked for machinima before he and a few others branched off to become funhaus. funhaus was later purchased by the media corporation fullscreen, as was rooster teeth, and both were merged sometime in 2014/2015. 

HOW THIS ALL BEGAN:

sometime in august, there were rumors circulating on certain forum sites that a catfisher had been sexting with a handful of e-celebs, and had their nudes. a torrent link was put up containing the files, but was quickly taken down. this didnt gain much traction, but was brought up again on the same forum in late september/early october. this time, the person posted images directly, showing that they’d been sexting with adam kovic and ryan haywood.

according to them, they didnt get very far with ryan and so there were only a small handful of his pictures and videos, but there were over 400 of adam’s nudes, also pictures and videos, and some of which featured his wife. after this news broke, a thread was made on kiwifarms to document everything (the thread was created on october 4th). another thread was made on /pol/ shortly before this, claiming that ryan was grooming underaged fans, and that both ryan and adam had sexted with fans (both of age and underage). no sources or corroboration for this claim were given at the time.

WEEK 1, DAY 1 (october 4th):

initially, most of the focus was on adam, due to the sheer number of his nudes and the content within them. while people were suspicious of the veracity of ryan’s nudes, it became clear that the photos of adam were legitimate, as his face was shown in several of them, there was no evidence of photoshopping, and he has a distinct tattoo which made it pretty hard to dispute. heres a more sfw picture as an example.

the catfish had all of these images on hand, and due to the “sent to you” header on top we know that they were sent directly to the catfish, and not taken from adam’s phone, meaning he willingly sent these images to the catfish. note that his wife was indeed almost naked in the background (wearing only underwear), and there are multiple pictures and videos of her completely naked and sometimes even engaging in sex with adam. after a bit of analysis, people came to the conclusion that the pictures of ryan were real, as well.

ADAM’S WIFE, JESS KOVIC:

no response came from him at first, nor his wife - the only indication she gave that she knew what had happened was this cryptic comment on her instagram account, which she has since privated. no one is quite clear what this reaction means, nor has she confirmed or denied whether she consented to the pictures and videos being taken and sent to others.

soon after, people who’d (puzzlingly) decided to sift through the nudes discovered something jarring - some of the nudes he’d sent appeared to have been taken IN the rooster teeth office. heres a sfw example, but there were at least a dozen others taken in the same location.

RYAN:

ryan’s nudes were largely ignored in the beginning - there were a great deal more of adam’s, and while ryan’s were pretty standard nudes, adam’s were much more plentiful and had a lot more variety in the... activities depicted, shall we say. people were also fixated on the status of his wife’s consent in the matter, and so little attention was given to ryan, who was simply deemed a cheater and left at that.

ROOSTER TEETH & THE FANBASE:

unsurprisingly, rt attempted to immediately suppress any and all mention of the scandal when it first broke. heres an image of a handful of threads that were made on r/roosterteeth that day; as you can see, the ones highlighted in red have been deleted, and all were about the leaks. comments on the official rt site were instantly deleted as well. no official comment from the company or any of the employees, though a former funhaus employee (rahul kohli) commented mocking adam for the situation, and implied that things were worse than we yet realized.

WEEK 1, DAY 2 (october 5th):

although adam had been the primary focus of the first day of the news breaking, it began to look like there was little else to discuss with him. at worst, he seemed to be a cheater, and potentially sent nudes of his wife without her permission. still disgusting, but as there was no comment from him and no new updates on his situation, attentions turned, and a slow rumble began bubbling up with more accusations about ryan.

ANONYMOUS ACCUSATIONS:

an anonymous twitter account, @brotherxteresa (whose account has since been suspended), claims to have been speaking to girls who’d been sexual with ryan. they state that everyone they’ve spoken to was of age - significantly younger than ryan, true, but still legally able to consent. however, they confirm that ryan has indeed been getting around with fans, both via sexting and in-person. he also strongly implies that the mods knew, and asks them to comment, but their responses are predictably vague. notably, though, is this tweet from @grandaddyskulls, in which they condemn “proven disgusting behavior,” heavily implying that the mods did indeed deal with “unproven” accusations against ryan in the past. unfortunately, there are no sources for this at this time.

on the same day, tumblr user @juggey creates this post, containing screenshots of a conversation they had with one of ryan’s victims. within those screenshots is this particularly interesting one, in which ryan receives a nude from the fan in question, only to ask, in an almost joking tone, if they “turned him into a felon” by sending a nude. they confirm that they are an adult, but it becomes clear that ryan did not know the age of the fan before getting sexual with them, and seems to have a very flippant and casual approach to this.

later on, this tweet is posted by @jasminewill123, confirming that ryan has indeed been messing with fans for years. no sources are posted, though, just a verbal confirmation. @brotherxteresa also reveals that he is speaking to someone who was solicited by ryan for sex when they were a minor in this tweet thread, but doesnt share any info, stating that the minor is saving it for a potential court case. there is also this tweet from someone stating that they slept with him in 2017, and that he claimed to have never had sex with a fan before and removed the condom mid-sex. once again, no corroboration for this just yet.

RT’S RESPONSE:

still mainly radio silence from the company, except for this tweet cancelling the days stream. replies on this post are locked almost instantly. rt also begins a quiet sweeping of all ryan and adam-centric content and videos, including a video of ryan reading “thirsty tweets” from fans, and straight up cut ryan out of certain videos (like a recent AHWU). some of these videos were archived, but we dont have a complete list of what was removed.

on the slightly less official side, r/roosterteeth issues a statement basically saying that any post attempting to discuss the leaks will be deleted immediately, and the people who post them will be reported (and likely banned).

WEEK 1, DAY 3 (october 6th):

we get our first confirmation of ryan having sexted a fan from @jasminewill123, in the form of this previously-unseen picture of ryan (it’s sfw but is clearly a cropped nude). rahul kohli again makes snide comments about adam and funhaus in general, but does not share any details of what he means. rumors spread that one of the former funhaus members, lawrence sonntag, has sent an email to his subscribers regarding adam kovic, but no evidence of that comes up yet. jess kovic posts this tweet plugging her online store, but still declines to comment on the situation. things are pretty quiet for a while, until finally, the first shoe drops.

TESSA GRAVES

at 4:13 pm, a woman named tessa graves posts this youtube video and links to it on her twitter account (with associated screenshots in the same thread). she discusses at length how she met ryan and when their relationship became sexual. 

as a brief summary of her video: they met at a con in 2017, when she had just turned 17, and started talking on snapchat. the relationship was platonic for a while until tessa accidentally sent him a picture meant for a friend in which her bra strap was visible. ryan began to flirt with her after this, and soon their relationship became sexual, with nudes being exchanged and dirty texts being sent. she states in the video that ryan did not know her age, nor did he ask for it. the two of them sexted and sent nudes on and off for two years, and planned to hook up in person, but it never came to fruition.

shortly after uploading the video, she posts this screen-recording of her snap messages with ryan, scrolling back through months and months of messages between them, all the way back to late 2017. the snapchat account is confirmed to be his, and the screen-recording proves to be incredibly compelling evidence. this is the first girl to come out and say that ryan was sexual with her when she was underage, and that she did send him nudes as a minor. on her twitter account, someone noticed that ryan was online in the video and inquired about it - tessa confirms that ryan messaged her when he saw her recording their chat, but declined to share what his message said.

RYAN’S TWEET

around an hour after tessa’s video was posted, ryan posts this tweet, announcing his departure from rt. he states that he “made mistakes,” acknowledging that the pictures and screenshots were real, but specifically insists that he “did nothing illegal,” a clear comment on tessa’s accusation. 

(he also asks people to stop harassing his family, but im unsure if the claim is true, as i personally have only seen people empathizing with his wife and children and no negative comments about them at all. he may be referring to people messaging his wife for comment on the situation, or he may just be straight up lying. given all hes done, the latter seems quite likely.)

people quickly begin speculating whether or not ryan was fired or quit of his own volition. personally, i believe the company offered him the option to either resign right then and there, or let them fire him publicly, and he chose the former. this is all speculation, though.

WEEK 1, DAY 4 (october 7th):

lawrence sonntag’s email to his subscribers finally gets leaked; it basically just says that hes grossed out and pissed off by what happened, and ends with the cryptic comment that “adam never washed his hands.” (he later stated that he meant this literally. EW!)

later the same day, adam privates his twitter account, and removes all references to rooster teeth and funhaus in his bio. shortly after, he unfollows everyone he was following and changes his icon and header to a black image. (basic public breakdown stuff, i suppose?) 

NEW LEAK TIMELINE:

it’s discovered that an anonymous twitter user, @d74840281, had messaged ryan and adam weeks before regarding these leaks on september 18th. they also accuse ryan, adam, and several other youtube personalities - alec paul, kootra, nenreaper, and dormstreams - of “grooming the same minor.” (i dont know any of those people, but it seems relevant so i added it.)

it’s also revealed that the r/funhaus subreddit was aware of the leaks 2 weeks beforehand, meaning that the info was successfully suppressed until october 4th, and that it was likely well-known by all funhaus members and probably general rt staff, as well.

RT’S RESPONSE:

the official rt account on roosterteeth.com posts this update to their programming schedule, cancelling several rttv programs, putting both achievement hunter and funhaus on a week long break, and delaying the premiere of two new shows (”rvb zero” and “grudge night”)

not long after, they post these tweets stating that they have “parted ways” with both adam and ryan, confirming that both men are no longer rt employees. they are deliberately vague about whether the men were fired or quit, but given the responses from both, i think ryan likely chose to resign instead of be fired, and adam was probably just fired outright. 

RYAN’S MODS:

you may recall that, on the second day, the question of whether the mods knew about ryan’s doings was posed. their answers were, of course, extremely vague, but one of them in particular strongly implied that the mods had dealt with some kind of accusation against ryan in the past and either ignored or actively suppressed it. well, sure enough, two of the mods (@grandaddyskulls and @ohdeerbambi/) post tweets admitting that they knew the entire time. 

specifically, they state that someone came forward with accusations of ryan behaving inappropriately two years ago (2018), coupled with screenshots. the mods confronted ryan about this, and when ryan (predictably) lied about it, they decided to drop it instead of pursuing it further. 

ADAM’S TWEET:

at 10:49 pm, adam finally speaks up with a post on twitter, formally stating that he is leaving funhaus. he apologizes to his coworkers and fans, but primarily apologizes to his wife, stating that he has “upturned her life.” he describes the events thus far as an “unbelievable breach of privacy and peeling back of [his] life,” and says that he is stepping away in order to focus on repairing his relationship with his wife and working on himself. 

while we still have no confirmation on whether his wife consented to having those pictures and videos taken, we know with a good amount of certainty now that she did not consent to having them sent to others. this would likely qualify as revenge (or otherwise non-consensual) porn in the state of california, so if she pressed charges, adam would likely see jail time.

CAST MEMBERS REACT:

the first direct response from cast members come from michael, jeremy, and lindsay, stating their feelings of anger and betrayal, and strongly implying that none of them were aware of the goings-on. (while they definitely HAVE to say this cookie-cutter stuff for the sake of their image, i will say that theres really not much else a person can say in a situation like this while still being professional. i do tentatively believe all three of them, with the most doubt on michael.)  

at this time, lawrence sonntag unfollows ryan, as do gus and lindsay. interestingly, the first person ryan unfollows himself is lindsay - this could potentially mean that lindsay actually blocked him, which forces the other person to unfollow.

WEEK 1, DAY 5 (october 8th):

at this point, discussion of adam kovic all but tapers off. he has gone full radio silent, and no one has come out with any more stories about him, so it seems very likely that his wrongdoings begin and end with the initial sexting and sending nudes of his wife. the conversation begins to turn to focus on ryan in earnest.

RYAN’S WIFE:

a reddit post (that is sadly deleted now) is uncovered from 3 months ago that reveals he and his wife have been sleeping in separate rooms for some time - we’re unsure exactly how long, but most people who’ve mentioned it have said it started in may. according to ryan, this was because his wife was exposed to covid at her job, but the quarantine period for covid is only 2 weeks - why would they be sleeping in separate rooms for so long when they clearly were not doing so before?

it is speculated that his wife may have somehow learned of ryan’s dalliances, as he was also seen without his wedding ring in streams much more often around the same time. it is unknown exactly why, though, so take this with a grain of salt.

MORE ANONYMOUS ACCUSATIONS:

a deleted user on reddit makes a post stating that they, too, sexted with ryan while they were also married. their husband found out and threatened to leak the info, but the user was able to convince him not to do so and he - according to op - deleted what proof he had. although the original post is now deleted, a pinned moderator comment on it states that the user provided proof corroborating the story in private. you can read a copy-pasted version of that story here. (apologies if it’s out of order.)

MORE CAST MEMBER COMMENTARY:

a list of all known cast member statements can be found here. it’s pretty comprehensive, but there are some i want to address here directly:

lindsay snaps at someone who tries to call her out for “not supporting her family” (meaning ryan). this, for me, is the big reason why i feel that she, at the very least, is being sincere.

blaine posts this.... weird video of him working out and captions it “me figuring out how to convert anxiety into energy.” i guess it’s supposed to be somewhat of a mood lightener, but honestly it just feels kind of trivializing to me. idk what he was thinking LMAO

aaron marquis makes this... interesting (and vague) comment. no further elaboration on it, but it’s definitely unique in comparison to many others.

meg’s statement strikes me as particularly devoid of sincerity. it may just be confirmation bias, but i just feel like it’s incredibly hollow in comparison to the others (which are also kind of hollow LMAO).

joel heyman, who was fired from rt not long ago, doesnt comment directly, but does like this tweet which calls him “the only non-degenerate connected to rt.” (OCT. 12 EDIT: he has since posted this tweet with no context, but i think it’s pretty clear what hes referring to.)

tina dayton, streamer and wife of ray, posts this tweet letting people know that mentioning the ryan/adam situation to ray in streams will not be tolerated. (OCT. 21 EDIT: she posts this tweet a few days later, on october 15th, decrying anyone who wants to play “devils advocate” in support of an abuser against their victim.)

JAN 30 EDIT: this is very late, but sometime on or before january 6th, alfredo briefly discussed the ryan haywood situation on his stream and berated those who still support him. his closing statement is the perfect summation of all of these events: fuck ryan haywood.

WEEK 1, DAY 6 (october 9th):

adam kovic deletes his twitter account, and all other public social media. this is the last piece of relevant adam kovic information for several months to come.

MICHELLE VOLOGS

at 11:26 am, a twitter user named @MichelleVologs posts this tweet, containing a link to this video, called “what you need to know about ryan haywood,” in which she asserts - with proof - that she and ryan had sex on september 23rd 2017, when she was 17 years old.

brief summary: they began talking when she was 17 and dm’d him on instagram. it was platonic at first, but he began flirting with her and trying to sext with her, at which point she inquired about the nature of his relationship with his wife. he insisted that they were in a “sexless marriage” because his wife hates sex, and that he needed to seek it out elsewhere. (we have no idea if this is even remotely true - the only source claiming this is ryan himself.) they sexted for a while, then eventually met up in california and had sex in person (and much like the story that @jasminewill123 told, ryan removed the condom in the middle of sex). when michelle told ryan that she was underage, he simply stated that it was okay and that he “trusted her.” 

she shows screenshots throughout the video of their instagram dms, as well as some candid shots of ryan in their hotel room. (people have speculated that the latter two pictures may be ryan removing his wedding ring.) this picture also proves that they definitely met in person. take note of the fact that, in the dms, michelle keeps the conversation very platonic and professional - ryan is the one to initiate the sexual talk, and with zero prompting.

on top of this, michelle is also the first person to posit the idea that ryan deliberately chose to pursue young girls with mental health issues, a notion that will crop up again later.

EVEN MORE ANONYMOUS ACCUSATIONS

a reddit user by the name of “klowbie-frenzy” states that they, too, were victimized by ryan, though they dont publicly share their story or any particular info. they are encouraged to go to rt directly.

WEEK 1, DAY 7 (october 10th):

ryan begins deleting tweets, but other than that is completely radio silent. people analyzing ryan’s instagram notice this post, made on september 24th 2017 - the day after he and michelle had sex. sure enough, he is still in LA as he was the day before, and michelle herself comments on the post in a clear reference to the events of the day before, reasserting that she is telling the truth.

LEIGH:

yet another girl, leigh, comes forward and says she was sexually involved with ryan. she posts this (very long) document to her twitter account @leigh__sucks, which details the entirety of her relationship with ryan. unlike tessa and michelle, leigh was over 18 during the course of her experience with ryan (she was 20 when they first started talking).

brief summary of the document: she started messaging ryan on snapchat in 2017, and it remained platonic until february 2018, when they exchanged nudes for the first time. they sexted for a while, until hooking up for the first time at rtx 2018. leigh told someone she knew about the encounter, and this person began harassing leigh and ryan about it, threatening to tell his wife and leaving nasty comments on ryan’s stream. eventually the person backed off, and ryan and leigh continued sexting and meeting up for sex, on and off. according to her, they sexted as recently as september 2020.

this story is MUCH different than tessa’s and michelle’s, as leigh was still engaging with ryan fairly actively until only a month ago, and had a different perspective as an adult than the two underaged girls would have had. still, she is absolutely correct that ryan held a similar power over her due to his celebrity status, and that he took advantage of this.

she also provides screenshots and pictures of the two of them in the thread. although it is all VERY convincing - as if everything else hes done wasnt enough - theres something particularly unique in her thread, which is these screenshots of payments sent to her by ryan, under the name “sorta malicious gaming.” why is ryan sending leigh money under this name relevant? well...

RYAN’S DONATIONS:

one of ryan’s mods reveals that the email ryan used to send this money was connected to his stream. according to ryan, the money he received from twitch donations and bits went to his children’s college funds, or any necessary big-ticket expenditures like home repairs - however, as we can see here, that was a complete lie. this means that all donations he received, which he claimed went to taking care of himself and his family, were actually being spent on gifts and plane tickets for the girls he was hooking up with. im not sure if he could get into any legal trouble here - im doubtful, since they are donations - but this is just another way he took advantage of his fans, only this time is financial instead of sexual. and speaking of taking advantage of fans...

RYAN “VENTS” TO LEIGH:

shortly after posting her document, leigh added an update to say that ryan had redownloaded snapchat and that she’d immediately began taking screenshots. surprisingly, ryan messaged her and asked if she’d speak with him. leigh agreed (for the purpose of getting more screenshots, according to her), and ryan began talking about how his marriage and career were over, how he never meant to victimize anyone, and that the girls coming out would rather “make him the bad guy” than accept that theyd slept with him willingly. 

leigh mentions that it occurred to her how ryan would always cast doubt on any rumors by claiming that whatever girl hed been involved with was “crazy,” and notes that he did the same to her, all while calling her his “friend.” this will be relevant again later. 

ryan goes on to point the finger at leigh specifically, saying that he ‌“still‌ ‌didn’t‌ ‌know‌ ‌if‌ ‌[she] ‌was‌ ‌going‌ ‌to‌ ‌add‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌fire‌ ‌at‌ ‌this‌ ‌point,”‌ ‌and‌ ‌how‌ ‌he‌ ‌“hoped‌ ‌[she wouldn’t]‌ ‌for‌ ‌his‌ ‌kids’‌ ‌sake.” all the while, leigh notes that he was deleting messages, proving to her that ryan was more fixated on his image and manipulating her into doing what HE wanted, rather than doing the right thing. here are screenshots of the conversation between leigh and ryan, and here are some clearer photos (as some are a bit blurry due to being taken on another phone).

WEEK 2, DAY 1 (october 11th):

this day is mostly quiet as people attempt to digest the absurd influx of information from the days prior, as well as the huge bombshell dropped by leigh in particular. 

RYAN’S DISCORD SERVER:

it’s discovered that ryan likely found out about the leaks very early on (either the very first day, or the day of tessa’s accusation), because he was noted as being online in his discord server, which he apparently rarely used.

the users in his discord server immediately disown him upon learning of his preying on minors, and assert that the server is now a general server instead of a ryan haywood server.

YOU GUESSED IT - MORE ANONYMOUS ACCUSATIONS:

this tweet thread is made by @trickstress_ stating that, while working with “the madhouse” (not exactly sure what this is, but it seems like some kind of ryan-themed community server), they attempted to get ryan to address a situation occurring behind the scenes in which someone was being bullied and harassed by other members. when ryan is sent five pages of screenshots and evidence, he basically says that screenshots are not proof and that the victim simply “wanted” to be offended. this caused trick and a few others to leave the madhouse.

in the same screenshot, he mentions a situation involving another certain user that he is dealing with (the name of the person in question is redacted in blue), and trick speculates that the person in blue may be another one of ryan’s victims.

meanwhile, twitter user @eacalpreon (whose account appears to be deleted) states that they uncovered this tumblr post from august 25th, 2019, about someone who spotted ryan at an austin hotel they used to work at, entering a hotel room booked by someone that was certainly NOT his wife. at the time of posting, this was simply brushed off as speculation and ignored.

KAYLA:

at 10:03 am, this tweet is posted by @HADERSRICHIE/, detailing yet another story of their encounters with ryan. unlike other stories, kayla unfortunately does not have any screenshot evidence due to losing it all after unfriending ryan from snapchat in 2018 - but in all honesty, at this point we know hes guilty, so that part is not as relevant.

brief summary of the document: the two began talking on snapchat in february 2017, but they didnt begin talking regularly until june 2017, after kayla had moved to austin (for non-related reasons). kayla reveals that she is the user from trick’s tweet thread that was bullied out of the madhouse, and that ryan was not only unhelpful, but was actively telling people that she was a “crazy psycho.” she also backs up the idea that ryan seemed to deliberately target girls with mental health issues. in late 2017/early 2018, the two “make up” and ryan initiates sexual talk. within the first day of flirting, ryan sends kayla a dick pic. the two sexted for a while, and eventually did hook up in person. they hooked up 3 times in total before kayla unfriended ryan on snapchat and ceased all communication with him. 

unlike other cases, kayla was of age (23/24) when this all went down. later on, trick confirms on reddit that kayla was indeed the person from her tweet thread whose name was censored in blue.

DOT:

at 3:37 pm, this tweet thread is posted by @alijdotroro stating that she was also involved with ryan for a few months. her thread is fairly short, and she states that they never had sex in person or anything to the same extent as some of the others - he flirted with her for the first time while she was at a concert, it continued for several months, then he got bored and stopped it. dot was unable to provide screenshots as she had deleted her snapchat. 

JACK’S STATEMENT:

jack pattillo posts this tweet at 8:16 pm, containing this document regarding the ryan (and adam) situation. he first addresses his feelings of anger, betrayal, and guilt, stating that he feels somewhat responsible as he helped to create the same platform that ryan abused. he goes on to thank everyone who has had kind words for him and the other rt staff, and states that while he knows everyone handles rough situations differently, he hopes that people can understand his desire to think positively. he goes on to say that he knows it will be difficult for fans to trust rt going forward, but that he hopes they will give rt another chance and that they (rt) “will be better - [they] have to be.” 

as far as all of the statements go, in my opinion, this one is the most sincere of all (although lindsay’s is definitely the most sincere for me) - jack clearly wrote this himself instead of using standard “shocked” quotes as many of the other rt cast did, and while it is definitely very damage control-y, i can easily tell that he, at the very least, is taking the matter seriously. this doesnt necessarily mean that jack 100% didnt know, but at this point i am inclined to believe that he didnt.

WEEK 2, DAY 2 (october 12th):

twitter user @fantaisieally discusses her own experiences with ryan haywood; they chatted on snapchat starting in 2017, she would often go to him for dating advice, and while ryan finally tried to hit on her, he got completely deaded when she told him that he was “like her older brother.” honestly this one is just really funny to me, like she completely curved his ass and he had to flounder talking about “i was JOKING lol just a joke!” it’s pretty glorious after all this terrible shit.

someone on reddit notes that after ally turns him down, ryan doesnt apologize or anything, but instead continues the “joke” in such a way that prompts her to accept his offer while still giving him plausible deniability. (that phrase is going to come up quite a bit with regard to his overall “strategy.”)

KATIE B:

at 9:08 am, twitter user @frizzical/ posts this tweet thread, documenting her own relationship with ryan. she states that, while their relationship thankfully never turned sexual, ryan absolutely attempted to groom her into sex and even mentioned her to another girl, saying he wanted a threesome with both of them.

brief summary of the document: katie started watching his streams when she was 17, and ryan knew her by name very quickly. they started talking on snapchat shortly after she turned 18, and although it was generally rt-related, one day she reached out asking for advice on a personal situation that ryan was incredibly helpful with, leading to them talking semi-regularly. they talked about katie’s abusive home life and mental health issues, and while things were mostly platonic, ryan would sometimes drop inappropriate questions in, such as if katie was a virgin and what her sexuality was. when katie hit hard financial times, ryan attempted multiple times to send her money, and when katie refused to take charity, he would make a “joke” about having her pay it off with sex.

eventually ryan forced her to accept the money, stating that he would no longer speak to her if she didnt. ryan was katie’s main support system, and so she felt she had no choice but to accept it. she states that he sent her $1000 in total, all of which came from his twitch’s paypal. he also actively tried to turn katie against her best friend - kayla, who was the other victim mentioned on week 2, day 1 (october 11th) - by telling her that kayla was crazy, but this did not work. in 2019, katie moved in with ryan’s mod bambi, and ryan very suddenly cut off contact completely. ryan and katie got back in contact as recently as earlier this week, and when she began taking screenshots of their snap conversations, ryan dm’d her on twitter to confront her about it, further trying to manipulate her. she ends with a message of support for the other girls. 

the messages ryan sent katie are viewable in the thread, but i would like to link them directly here to show how he manipulates victims. notice how he once again pins the blame on the victim for taking screenshots, instead of himself for being a fucking creep. 

RT’S RESPONSE:

they’ve been pretty quiet the last few days, but someone noticed that the off topic podcast episode #177 has been removed from iOS podcasts. this episode is the one where the guys discuss ryan’s habit of leaving business trips a day late. i find it extremely interesting that the company is claiming ignorance of the situation, yet would remove this VERY key piece of information in the process.

OFF TOPIC #177

i originally just had this as a bulletpoint in the miscellanous info section, but decided to move it to its own segment because it is actually quite significant to this story. in this video, michael, jeremy, gavin, ray, geoff, and andy blanchard discuss ryan’s habit of always leaving business trips a day late.

quick description: michael brings up a conversation he had with ryan about staying an extra day on business trips, and paraphrases ryan as saying that he prefers to stay away longer because “[his wife] isnt gonna watch [the kids], im not gonna get a fucking second at home.” michael then states that theyve “gotten to the bottom of this,” that ryan just wants to sleep before “going home to that nightmare.” 

as michael is talking, geoff and jeremy both go quiet and look very pensive and glassy-eyed, while ray tries to joke that the quote was a “cry for help from ryan” but immediately frowns after saying so. gavin, jeremy, and andy are completely quiet for the entire second half of the video. michael tries to paper over it by saying that ryan loves his kids very much as evidenced by their frequent appearances in his streams, but a visibly-uncomfortable ray makes another “joke” that having his kids appear in his videos is “easy money.”

then there is a VERY awkward silence in which everyone looks super uncomfortable, jeremy takes a massive gulp of his drink, ray has his hand over his mouth as he stares hard at michael and shakes his head repeatedly (as if telling him to stop talking), and geoff lets out a HUGE sigh, as if he’s just realized something terrible. michael ends the clip with the comment that they didnt “jack” ryan, meaning that they werent making fun of ryan to have him come on the podcast and defend himself. (OCT. 12 EDIT: thanks to @juggey for clarifying this!) although it’s not included in this short clip, the full podcast shows that the incredibly tense moment is cut by fiona nova immediately walking on set with a puppy out of nowhere. very fucking weird.

while it is largely circumstantial, i find this clip is extremely telling, and i think this is the moment where they realized that something was going on with ryan’s homelife (either they recognized that the real reason he wanted to stay behind was to cheat, or they’d simply put together that he was not happy at home for whatever reason). the fact that this off topic is one of the only ones to have been taken down also really strikes me as important.

ALISON

at 2:31 pm, twitter user @adothop posted some screenshots of conversations between herself and ryan. they did not have a sexual relationship, but looks like ryan tried hard (and failed hard LMAO) at flirting with her, to no avail. not much else to say about this one - it’s pretty straightforward.

RYAN’S STATEMENT

at 7:48 pm (around the same time i uploaded this post, lmao), ryan posted this statement on his twitter account, discussing the events of this past week. he takes full accountability for his actions, stating that he abused his position and crossed the line as a public figure, while also asking that people stop harassing his family. the statement’s about as cookie cutter as it can get - after all, what can a person really say to absolve themselves after being outed as doing so much horrid stuff?

i again am skeptical of the claim that his family is being harassed, though i dont doubt that people are harassing HIM directly, but in any case it’s as much of a non-apology as one might expect. he even tries to shift blame by saying he “always came from a place of what [he] thought was a shared connection.” it’s boilerplate bullshit, as usual.

ANOTHER RH STORY ANON

sometime around 9 pm, a reddit user going by r/anotherrhstoryanon (i will call them anon for short) put this post on the r/roosterteeth subreddit, and linked to a 30 page google doc detailing their relationship with ryan. the timeline of this one is very difficult to parse, but i will do my best to lay it out clearly. particular tw for this story - it describes in detail sexual abuse, physical abuse, and features ddlg heavily throughout. i will not be linking any images directly - please view the doc for those.

(not-so)-brief summary: im not certain of when ryan and anon originally started talking, but the earliest message shown in their conversation is from december 2016, and the first time they met up in person was april 2017. they were “together” for at least a year, as anon states that it took them until march 2018 to begin distancing themselves from ryan. their relationship was HEAVILY steeped in dd/lg culture - ryan almost solely referred to anon as names like “little girl,” “baby girl,” even calls them “kiddo” in the VERY FIRST SCREENSHOT and asks if theyve ever been with an older man. given that he already dipped below the age of consent twice (that we know of - we currently do not know the age of this anon), this is a very horrifying start.

anon admits pretty early on - to both ryan (in the screenshots) and the reader - that they were very intimidated by him, and felt a sort of compulsion to do as he ordered. but as they say quite clearly, they realized soon into their “relationship” that even though they wanted to please ryan so he’d like them, they hated having sex with him, hated BEING sexual with him, and just generally hated being with him. although they enjoyed sex the first time, they note that sex with ryan was rough and painful every time after, leading to them tearing more than once and bleeding EVERY time, and sometimes causing them to be unable to sit or walk after. 

ryan not only ignored anon every time they asked him to be more gentle, but seemed to get off on it, making comments about how they “needed more abuse” or that they “had to work up to it.” on top of all this, ryan would not wear a condom while having sex with anon, and lied to them about them being the only fan he was having sex with - which they believed until august 2020, more than two years later, when ryan said there was “one other fan.” in actuality, ryan had been sleeping with multiple girls and often removing the condom during sex, a fact well-documented here. 

anon ends the document by tying their story to several other known facts, to show the pattern of ryan’s behavior, and sharing some other pertinent info. some of these include:

- a picture of them taken in a hotel room mirror, in an identical room and position to the picture leigh took. 

- this video, at timestamp 8:27, of the off topic podcast #87. in this short moment, ryan idly licks a cupcake. anon shows a screenshot in which ryan messaged her and admitted that he was thinking about her while he was licking it. 

- screenshots of ryan attempting (again with limited success) to give anon money or buy them presents. anon was resistant to this, as katie had been, but ryan managed to convince them to accept a remote controlled sex toy. later in the same exchange, he uses the term “plausible deniability” again. there is a reason this keeps cropping up - he very likely used the phrase often.

- a screenshot of anon telling ryan point blank that the power dynamic between them was imbalanced. this message is dated may 23rd, 2020 - and around june 12th, 2020 was leigh’s exchange with ryan, in which he tells leigh that he is older and “some kind of quasi-internet person,” and is worried this will influence her.

- screenshots of ryan admitting to choking anon without their permission. according to anon, this was not the first time he did something to them without permission, and it wasnt even the non-consensual act anon was referring to when they brought it up. i sincerely cannot overstate my fucking disgust here.

there is a lot more i can get into here, but im going to cut it off here for the sake of brevity (and out of disgust, honestly). please consider reading all 30 pages, if you can stomach it - it truly is even worse than it sounds. theres a reason i didnt link to any of their messages directly.

WEEK 2, DAY 3 (october 13th):

sometime earlier in the week (im not sure when, as the “adam kovic” aspect of the story has been pretty much lost the plot), jess kovic deletes her twitter account. the reason why is pretty easy to guess. then, sometime today, it’s discovered that she has also deleted all posts containing pictures of adam on her instagram account.

(JAN 30 EDIT: this was originally an archive link which showed all of the most recent posts on jess’s insta, of which quite a few adam ones had been deleted [i saw it myself the day it was posted]. unfortunately, it appears the archive was taken down, so ive replaced the original link with a screenshot from kiwifarms of the first person to mention it on the thread. i know thats not amazing proof, but sadly its the best i can do.)

this all but confirms that jess did not consent to having those pictures/videos sent to other people, if she consented to having them taken at all, and this makes adams actions even more disgusting than we initially believed them to be.

RH ANON PT. 2:

people are still reeling from the absolutely horrendous document released the day before (oct. 12) when anon posts a short update on the very last page of the doc, which you can read here. they clear up some points that people were confused on; most are not relevant for our purposes, but the biggest one is that anon confirms they were NOT underage during their “relationship” with ryan and that he knew this. 

anon also confirms that ryan deliberately lied about the circumstances of their “relationship” in order to keep them from backing out of it, as he knew they would not want to proceed with a sexual relationship if he admitted the truth. based on context, i am taking this to mean that he lied about not sleeping with anyone else, and about wearing condoms if he did. 

MEGASHINY:

at 3:04 pm, ryan’s mod meg (who i will be calling by her username, megashiny, for the sake of clarity) posts this tweet, which contains a link to this document. in this document, she admits that ryan took advantage of his position over her (as, being his mod, she was basically his employee) and started sending her nudes without consent in september 2017 (she says it was a sunday, so either the 6th, 13th, 20th, or 27th - notice the proximity to his encounters with michelle and tessa). 

brief summary: he played the same card he had with the others, talking about his sexless marriage, and convinced megashiny to sleep with him. when she asked him point blank how many other girls he was involved with, he lied and said only one or two - as we clearly note, there were many, many more than that. she did not want to sleep with him, but like anon from yesterday, felt compelled to do what he asked. even when megashiny tried to say no to a sex act he wanted to do, he told her he “knew how to make her say yes.” he also knew about her having adhd and anxiety, and in conjunction with the other girls, strikes me as yet another continuation of his pattern of targeting mentally ill and neurodivergent women and girls.

while megashiny was somewhat close in age to ryan (she was 28 at the time), if youll notice in her picture, she is quite thin and small in stature - both of which contribute to her looking pretty young. while i do believe ryan knew her age, it would not surprise me if he pursued her because she had the APPEARANCE of being in her late teens.

megashiny posts an update later the same day, detailing the exact method weve seen happen with the other girls before - ryan would “throw all this attention and praise at [them], make [them] feel special,” only to “basically ghost [them].” this left the girls feeling like theyd done something wrong, but in actuality, it was all part of his plan to keep them dependent on and obedient to him. these same patterns crop up in every story, no matter the variables.

she also admits that she essentially helped ryan with his “sexcapades” by either covering for him, encouraging the girls to sleep with him, or just generally keeping her mouth shut regarding what she knew about them. (this part is very vaguely described, so i can only surmise what she means specifically, but i do think this is essentially what she is saying.) shortly after she posted this, ryan called her and begged her for over an hour to not divulge anymore information, and to “think of his wife and kids.” 

RYAN BEGINS MESSAGING VICTIMS: 

at 7:04 pm, michelle posts this tweet, with the caption “how it started vs how it ended (hopefully, and please stop harassing me)” and two pictures. the first picture is of her first exchange with ryan on instagram; the second picture is a more recent message from ryan (not sure exactly what day it was received, but as it still shows his old icon, it is definitely a few days old), begging her to take down her video and tweets and to “think about his kids.” (brief tw for suicide mention in the next two paragraphs.)

he even goes so far as to strongly imply that he is going to kill himself, telling michelle that he is “going to die” and that “he will die for this if you [michelle] want.” from the statement michelle made, it seems likely that he has sent her similar messages over the course of the last week. michelle must have blocked him on his original account, because he then made this throwaway account and dm’d her again, repeating the same sort of rhetoric and begging her to remove her statements “for his kids.”

in the same tweet thread, another victim, ileena (who was shown accusing ryan very early on in a previous screenshot) posts an old screenshot of a conversation between her and ryan, in which she is actively suicidal and ryan begs her not to kill herself because “practically there’s no way they wouldnt investigate and figure out you and i had stuff going on.” he straight up tells her that he doesnt want her to die because their affair will be discovered.

(note: ileena’s original screenshot contains a full, unblocked number that could potentially belong to ryan - but DO NOT CONTACT THIS NUMBER. he is a disgusting monster, but it is not anyone’s place to needlessly antagonize him, and we dont even know that that is his actual number to begin with. i am only putting this disclaimer because the screenshot is easily viewable in the thread; i wouldnt even mention it otherwise.) 

CAS:

not long after midnight, @slayercas/ (who i will refer to as “cas” for short) posts this cryptic tweet, strongly hinting at needing to say something important, but being scared to do so due to a lack of evidence - the surrounding tweets are all about ryan haywood, making it highly likely they are alluding to having been one of his victims. approximately 4 hours later, they received this message from a throwaway account, ostensibly owned by ryan.

notably, though, is the fact that this is NOT the same throwaway account which ryan was messaging michelle from - the account michelle was messaged from is @pleaseR73880233, while the account cas was messaged from, although the name is partially obscured, ends with the number “7384736.” no confirmation on cas’s claim, nor whether the account is truly ryan’s. 

(OCT. 14 EDIT: the full name seems to be @pleaseR27384736, which originally led to this cryptically bereft page. note the join date, amount of tweets, and amount of followers - the account was in use for quite some time, and may have had a different username before messaging cas. someone also takes note of the fact that there was an intern named “amber” who worked at rooster teeth years ago, but so far no connection has been made between the name and anyone else. 

sadly, this account has since been deleted, so no proper analysis of who it is following and who follows it can be done. the username has since been taken and the account replaced with this - take their personal opinion with a grain of salt.)   

MJ:

at 9:21 am, twitter user @mjmills_ posts these tweets containing these screenshots of a recent conversation with ryan. although she declines to share her story right then, she notes that ryan has been taking screenshots of their old conversations, a statement which causes ryan to message her asking “where [she is] on the hate meter” and once again trying to manipulate her. although nothing is forthcoming right away, this will pop up again later.

WEEK 2, DAY 4  (october 14th):

rt’s community manager, jackie izawa, announces her departure from the company. i cant even imagine how much shit she was inundated with after this news broke, but given that she explicitly mentions her mental health being a factor in her decision, im willing to bet it was a lot.

joel heyman also posts this incredibly eyebrow-raising tweet, clearly accusing rt staff of having known full well about ryan’s actions ahead of time. given that he was fired not long ago, it is entirely possible that he is just stirring the pot - but as he is a former rt founder, there may be some truth to his claim. if it IS true, however, then it reflects just as poorly on him, as it means that he ALSO knew about ryan and did nothing.

RYAN’S SOCIAL MEDIA:

sometime in the morning (before 11 am), ryan deletes his twitter account and his instagram. the throwaway account that was used to message michelle is also deleted around the same time, making it highly likely that it did indeed belong to ryan.

interestingly, the account that messaged cas is not deleted until much later (somewhere around 1:30-2 pm), and not before sending some more harassing messages. note the final message which says that “[his] family can’t handle another story coming out.” this strongly implies that there are even more girls than we’ve already seen - and counting every single accusation we know of, not just confirmed ones, we’ve already gotten somewhere between 10-15 girls.  

CAS PT. 2:

after some more messages from the potential ryan account, cas posts this follow-up tweet to clarify some points. she states clearly that she was NOT underage, and lives local to austin, which would explain both her fears about speaking out and how she could have encountered ryan. 

JACK AND MICHAEL:

in the early afternoon, jack and michael go live on youtube to do a stream together - but first, the monumental task of discussing ryan. (OCT. 14 EDIT: the original video was privated almost immediately after its conclusion; here is a reupload. it is sadly missing quite a few moments due to the site crashing periodically, but the majority of their conversation is there.) 

some key bits from the conversation:

- the first minute or so, both jack and michael have difficulty speaking, and stutter/stop short quite a bit before jack finally begins to talk in earnest. jack expresses disgust and regret immediately, apologizing to the community for “letting [them] down,” and thanks people who have been supportive to the victims and rt staff.

- michael point blank states that the achievement hunter staff - and probably more, also - were put into “counseling.” he does not specify whether he means LEGAL counseling or EMOTIONAL counseling, but given the way both he and jack act throughout the video, im all but certain that it’s the latter.

- jack asks that people not bother geoff, as he is “going through his own stuff,” and strongly implies that the situation with ryan has thrown him for a massive loop and possibly sent him into a downward spiral.

- michael states that they will NOT be discussing ryan at all during off-topic, and notes that they no longer want to even mention his name, let alone spend time talking about him at length (and, indeed, they do not address him by name in the video even once - jack mainly refers to him as “that guy” or “that monster,” while michael only refers to ryan as “he” or “him”). i personally am in pretty strong disagreement with the way theyve chosen to approach this, but i can understand the reasoning behind it.

- jack announces the return of rt extra life, and states that they will be doing a full week of 12 hour streams instead of one 24 hour stream “to make up for all the shit that happened this year.” 

- this is a small moment, and COMPLETE conjecture on my part, but i noticed it pretty quickly; at timestamp 14:15, when michael’s child cries off-screen, he slightly turns toward that direction, then seems to suddenly get upset and turns his face away from the camera, so his hair and hat obscure most of his profile. he seems to take a hard swallow, bites his lip (which is quivering), and rubs his face hard before turning back toward the camera. all of these things in conjunction make it seem that he was biting back tears, or otherwise chasing away some bad thought (possibly about ryan’s kids?).  

while i, as always, remain skeptical that no one knew about ryan, i do have to admit that this video is extremely saddening to watch. jack is audibly on the verge of tears for the entire 20-minute video, and michael looks absolutely miserable from beginning to end, as well - his hair is visibly unkempt under his hat, and his face is contorted into a grimace pretty much the whole time, all of which speaks to a sincere depressive state. in any case, rt as a whole has been well and truly fucked by this series of events.

SURVIVORS OF RYAN PT. 1:

earlier in the day, the twitter account @survivorsofryan (run by katie) received these dms from an anonymous account, stating that they were involved with ryan many years ago, around 2004/2005, and that he was still dating his girlfriend (now wife) at that time. they conclude that he has been cheating on her since at least 2004, possibly even earlier than that. note that this anonymous person also fits into ryan’s “preferred” age range of 18 or just over 18, while ryan was in his mid 20s at the time.

RYAN’S MODS 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:

all of ryan’s mods (katie, bambi, freckles, and more) have their mod powers removed from his youtube and twitch channels. freckles posits an excellent question - why would he remove their mod powers instead of just simply deleting both accounts?

there arent many answers i can think of other than the obvious one - that ryan sincerely plans to return to his online career once this “blows over.” his entitlement is absolutely unthinkable.

ASTRID ROSE:

at 7:01 pm, twitter user @astridrose_20 posts this tweet containing this document, detailing her relationship with ryan. (tw for sexual abuse.) 

summary: their first contact was in late 2018, when astrid was 18. she reached out to him to thank him for his positive content and mentioned her mental health struggle and abusive home life, and ryan responded in a kind way and comforted her. they had a friendly, platonic relationship for a short while, but he soon became suggestive. initially, astrid shut down his advances due to viewing him as a father figure, but was scared that he would sever contact should she not acquiesce. feeling indebted to him for his kindness, astrid rose eventually accepted his advances. 

they sexted for some time until meeting in person in 2019. astrid told ryan she was a virgin and was not on birth control, but ryan assured her he would wear a condom. ryan was, as many girls before have mentioned, very rough and gave her no time to adjust, and removed the condom halfway through sex in spite of astrid telling him she did not want him to. much like the r/roosterteeth anon mentioned, ryan was very rough, and astrid could hardly walk after.

they met up 10 more times after this, and every meeting eventually went this way - astrid could not take pill-form bc due to it making her feel unwell, so every time ryan would promise to wear a condom, and every time he would remove it in the middle of sex. astrid also states that, like the r/roosterteeth anon, ryan did things “similar” to the choking he did to that anon, but astrid did not want to specify any more than this. 

eventually, as a result of her trauma, astrid began binge eating and gained weight. ryan apparently lost interest in her due to this and cut all contact with her, at which point she deleted all their messages and other forms of contact. 

although the story does not have any corroborating evidence, this lines up extremely well with what we have already learned about ryan, and i cant really find myself doubting any bit of it, as it all seems to fit very clearly into the picture. 

KRISTEN M/TATS:

at 8:21 pm, a community member by the name of kristen (nicknamed tats by the community - i will be referring to her as “tats”) posts this tweet containing yet another story about ryan. the story is thankfully not as horrific as some of the others, but is elucidating nonetheless.

brief summary: tats first reached out to ryan in 2013, as she had just founded the blog “fuckyeahrtfanfic” (which is exactly what it sounds like) and wanted to do a q&a with some rt cast members. ryan agreed, and after the q&a she and ryan both kept up contact. tats notes that, while ryan definitely started their relationship off similarly to that of the other girls (being kind and sweet, helping them with emotional problems, sending gifts and other such things, then progressing to sexually suggestive comments and “jokes”), things did not go the same way for her.

simply put, tats did not indulge ryan at all in the sexual stuff very much, and would either brush past it or not notice it. she notes that, after a while - primarily when the other girls, like his twitch mods, came into the picture - their interactions became shorter, more business-like, and much more rare. she concludes by wondering if there was anything she could have done had she been more knowledgeable about what was going on.

while the story is not an allegation in itself, it is indeed telling about ryan’s process, as it shows clearly what happens if the girls he spoke to didnt meet his “standards.” tats does seem grateful to have been spared a much worse fate, but she notes that big parts of her life that were populated by interactions with ryan have now been sullied, and that she feels a tremendous amount of guilt for what little involvement she had in pushing girls toward ryan (as she states that some of the people who’ve come forward were people she knew and unintentionally “placed in harm’s way”). his selfish behavior has had a massive impact that extends far beyond himself and his victims, and it’s horrific to think about.

WEEK 2, DAY 5 (october 15th):

this day was pretty uneventful, overall: only one major breakthrough that i could see.

MJ PT. 2:

at 10:46 am, MJ posts this tweet containing this google doc detailing her relationship with ryan. her story is quite different, as she is currently (as of october 15th) the only girl to have been in ryan’s age range (she was 30 at the time, ryan was 38), and was also married at the time of their relationship.

brief summary: she and ryan began talking around november 2018, and although she was married, both she and her husband were interested in pursuing a polyamorous relationship/open marriage (im not clear on exactly which, as mj uses the term “polyam,” but what she describes sounds closer to an open marriage which allows for no-strings sex outside of the relationship). mj vented to ryan about her anxieties with pursuing this kind of marriage, and ryan talked her through it and vented about his own marital troubles. they began to flirt in earnest.

in december 2018, mj approached ryan about rumors she had heard of other girls, which ryan of course denied. mj found out later that month that there were indeed others. in january 2019, ryan offered to fly her out to austin for a hook-up (using the money from his twitch account, of course). with her husbands approval, mj went in february, and they spent a while together - but when she returned home, ryan immediately ghosted her, and did not talk to her for a few weeks after. mj notes how disgusted and used she felt after the fact, but something still drew her to him, and they continued to have an on-off “relationship” until as recently as this year, where she notes that their conversations slowed basically to a halt. she ends the doc with an apology to everyone who was hurt by ryan. 

at this point, the stories are likely going to be much more of the same, as it’s clear that ryan had a predetermined system for how he’d approach these hook-ups, so i expect many more stories along these lines in the coming days. 

WEEK 2, DAY 6 (october 16th):

@slayercas/ abandons her twitter account due to continual harassment from yet another “pleaseread” account. do note that this is NOT the same account as before, since that one was deleted and then repurposed - this new one is completely barren, with only two (inexplicable) followers and no tweets or content to speak of. i am hesitant to believe that this is truly ryan, as the message really doesnt sound like something he would send at this point in time - however, i dont believe cas has faked this either (after all, why would she abandon the account if she was faking messages from ryan “for attention”?).

my outstanding theory is that someone completely unrelated has made up the account to mess with cas, as we know for sure that at least one person disbelieved cas enough to take the name of the previous account and say so in their description. on top of that, the fact that some of the numbers included are “911″ - making me think 9/11 - and “88401″ - making me think someone tried to slip in a “1488″ reference, but didnt want it to be obvious - have me skeptical that this is a real ryan throwaway. again, this is complete conjecture; please take it with a grain of salt.

SURVIVORS OF RYAN PT. 2:

at 10:25 am, @survivorsofryan posts this tweet containing this document from an anonymous person. (i will refer to them as UK anon, since that is where they are from.)

brief summary: UK anon starts off by saying that, while they did not sleep with ryan themselves, they know someone who has and is going to allow them to speak out for themselves. moving to themselves, they first spoke to ryan in march 2017, and sent him the usual “thank you for your content” message on his snapchat. they were in a discord group for RT, and apparently a few of them decided to send ryan suggestive pictures, which started off a few sexting relationships between them and him. according to UK anon, one of the discord members flew out - on their own dime - to sleep with him, while others had been sexting with him for a long time and were even still doing so recently. 

UK anon did meet ryan at rtx london in 2018, and was even brought on stage and sat next to him by lawrence sonntag (from funhaus) - she states that she’s fairly certain he recognized her, as he made it a point to be very physically close to her and to touch her quite a bit. she notes that, before this, she and many other girls had long since cut contact with him, and he’d promised he would stop the cheating and sexting with fans (which we, of course, know was a complete lie). she ends by saying that they thought they knew the truth about ryan, that he was simply a liar and cheater, but in actuality he was a sexual predator who’d been manipulating girls all along, and that this has floored her and her friends.

ON THE SPOT #80

as with off topic #177, i was going to put this in miscellaneous, but it is actually a huge moment in the context of this story. someone uncovers this moment from on the spot episode 80 (timestamp is 29:40 if the link doesnt work), in which burnie, barbara, jeremy, and ryan are playing “never have i ever,” and jon puts forth the prompt “never have i ever sent nude pics.” ryan takes a big swig, as does jeremy, and jon presses it by asking both of them if the nudes were sent to “someone other than [their wives].” ryan states that hes “not having this conversation” and that he had a life before he was married, to which barbara “jokingly” responds, “and after!”

burnie, however, looks a bit perturbed and says, “you had a life before your wife before camera phones?” to which ryan responds, “email existed back then, and camera phones.” that seems to cover it, you would think, EXCEPT that ryan is telling an out and out lie.

firstly, as we clearly know, he was sexting many more people than his wife, and quite recently. it was stupid of him to not just lie and say no, honestly, but i think weve come to realize ryan is not that bright. secondly, while ryan got married in 2007, he was dating his wife for a few years before that, as this anonymous contributor confirmed days ago - he was already dating his wife in 2004, when he had an affair with the anon. 

third, he is correct that camera phones and email existed back then - however, the average phone at that time did NOT have a camera, and the ones that did capped at 1.3 megapixels, which tended to look something like this. (forgive the random picture; its all i could find to show what i meant.) note how grainy and small the image is, and also take into consideration that this would have been the camera on a top-of-the-line phone in 2004, NOT the sort of phone the average person would have owned. this is assuming 2004 is the latest year he could have sent such pictures to someone without being in a relationship with his wife; camera phones were almost unheard of pre-2003, so his story completely falls apart there. 

he does have a point about the email aspect, but if we are sincerely considering that he may not be lying here, this would mean that he was finding people online to send nudes to (in a VERY pre-social media world; this wouldve been on like, bbs sites, or miscellaneous blogs/homepages, so it wouldve required some serious searching), taking nudes on a digital camera, manually uploading all the pictures to his computer, sorting out the nudes of choice, and then sending them. i dont think i need to go much further into this to show how quickly the basic concept of this falls apart.

WEEK 2, DAY 7 (october 17th):

not much to say in terms of ryan/his victims so far today, but i think this is relevant, so im going to include it - we instead get a surprise tweet from trevor collins, who was previously accused of cheating on and abusing his ex gf, which contains this statement basically refuting the claims entirely with many screenshots. 

i know absolutely nothing about the original trevor accusation, as i was no longer watching rt when trevor joined the crew and had long since lost interest in rt by the time the accusations began going around, so i cannot speak to the veracity of anything said in here, or of the original accusation. i will decline to state my personal opinion on the document, and instead just link it for you all to peruse. 

CAS PT. 2:

at 7:48 pm, @slayercas/ (OCT. 21 EDIT: the account name is now @otpineedyou) posts this tweet containing a document, describing their own story with ryan. 

brief summary: cas informs us out the gate that she was NOT underage, but rather in her late 20s during all this. she reached out to him to thank him for his content, to which ryan responded in a flirtatious way. things quickly escalated to full on sexting from there. when ryan asked if cas wanted to meet in person, she initially declined, but continued talking to him sexually after he confessed to having an open marriage (and cas notes that he did not say this until after she stated that she was in an open relationship herself). cas shared a story regarding a sexual trauma she had with ryan, which he seemed to empathize with.

once they began talking about dom/sub stuff, ryan got more aggressive in tone, and often brought up things like extreme roughness and choking. if cas asked ryan to stop bringing up things that were traumatic, he would apologize but continue to do so anyway. cas became uncomfortable and decided to forgo all sexual conversations with ryan; if he brought up something suggestive, she would either make an excuse to go or change the subject. he tried to guilt trip her into talking to him, but she did not budge, and eventually had to delete all rt-related accounts to put distance between him and herself. she closes with a message of positivity for others in the same situation.

ANON-2:

around 10 pm, this post is made on r/roosterteeth containing this document. although it is also about ryan, a sizable portion of the doc focuses on the anon’s experience with geoff. (i will be calling them anon-2 just for the sake of intelligiblity. i cant link pictures, so please check the doc for those.) 

brief summary: anon-2 was in their early-mid 20s (in mid 2016) when they discovered rt, and decided to send a snap to all of the cast members who had open snap accounts. ryan replied and, although things started out normal, they quickly became suggestive. at the same time, though, geoff also began talking to anon-2 and things also became flirty with them. they did exchange nudes and sext quite often while geoff was still married, but says they never slept with geoff themselves, although they knew others who did.  

anon-2 ended up hooking up with ryan in person, and as with the other girls, he lied about not sleeping with anyone else, and insisted on not using a condom. they had sex multiple times that weekend, and anon-2 confirms that, like the other girls claimed, ryan was incredibly rough and violent with sex. anon-2 then proceeds to share many screenshots and unseen pictures of ryan, and in addition, provides messages from as recently as october 10th, where she goads him into talking about what all happened. ryan confirms he has spoken to a pr agent and a lawyer, and then makes a very weird non-joke about possibly needing an “anchor marriage” to get out of the country, implying he would ask anon-2 to do this for him. anon-2 finishes the main part of the doc by saying she knows ryan has been seeking out sex from craigslist, and that she was just a part of his grand manipulation scheme all along.

WEEK 3, DAY 1 (october 18th):

barely after midnight, we get yet another r/roosterteeth anon, posting a document detailing their relationship with ryan. much like the others, we can see that ryan followed the same pattern of flattery and kindness, getting them to talk about their mental health issues, goading them into doing things they were not comfortable with, and eventually dropping them when he realized he could not manipulate them like the others. not much else to say about it, but i wanted to catalogue it all the same.

ANON-2 PT. 2:

an update is added to anon-2′s google doc, at the end of page 13, addressing the geoff side of their post. they post candids of geoff in a hotel room, sent to them by a friend who’d slept with geoff. they add a third update later the same day, insisting that, like the girls, geoff had no clue that ryan was a sexual predator. anon-2 goes on to add that geoff never mentioned anything about his wife knowing about his sleeping around, but states that they will not be sharing more information unless given permission to do so from the girls affected. lastly, she begs people to stop hassling millie, geoff’s underage daughter. 

GEOFF’S STATEMENT:

not long after anon-2′s update, geoff releases this statement on r/roosterteeth. he basically lays everything out, saying that he did indeed sext with and have sex with some fans during a period in his marriage where they were trying an open relationship, but that he felt uncomfortable with the imbalance due to the fans knowing so much about him and he so little about them. he goes onto say that he has taken a step back from rt due to extreme stress and mental health issues, and that he has not spoken about the ryan situation due to how overwhelming and upsetting it is. he closes by asking that people not drag his daughter and ex-wife into things, and leave all blame for him.

i am extremely mixed on this; on the one hand, geoff is an extremely skilled writer and speaker, and that is very clear in this document. he makes a point to share - almost to the point of oversharing - the situation between him and his then-wife to explain why he was associating with fans, and then moves past that to discuss his tumultuous personal life. however, he does not address the question of any age differences between him and these fans, and just refers to it as “two consenting adults ... getting to know each other.” 

although this all seems well and good, one huge spanner was thrown into geoff’s story here; this tweet from michelle vologs, which states that ryan explicitly told her that geoff was engaging sexually with fans, and possibly knew some of ryan’s stories himself. notice that the anonymous replier, who is concurring with what michelle said, is the same anonymous twitter account who contacted ryan and adam on september 18th about their nudes leak - several WEEKS before the news dropped publicly. 

although originally i was willing to believe what geoff had to say, as there was little conflicting evidence, michelle’s statement gives me extreme pause. if geoff was sleeping with enough fans that ryan knew about it, the chances of ryan not having mentioned his own experiences is very low - and on top of that, ryan has little to no reason to lie about this, as telling the truth would have actually been detrimental to his career, on the off-chance someone blabbed and it made its way back to geoff. so i am highly skeptical of the whole document.

WEEKS 3-11 (october 19th to january 2nd):

complete radio silence from ryan and adam both for a little under three months. as ryan was stated to have hired a pr agent and/or a lawyer amidst the initial scandal, its pretty easy to surmise that he was advised to just shut up and let things die down, and therefore did so. adam had gone quiet for a much longer time, so it was assumed he would not speak out again. however, people still felt that ryan was likely to try and make a comeback eventually. and, well...

WEEK 11, DAY 1 (january 3rd):

freckles, one of ryans former mods, posts this tweet containing this statement from ryan to his remaining subscribers, thanking them for sticking around and vaguely addressing “what a tough year its been” for him. unsurprisingly, this is met with IMMEDIATE retribution, as the message served as a reminder that a) many people forgot to unsubscribe and unfollow in the initial situation, and b) that ryan was still getting paid by twitch the entire time he was being ousted. this, of course, led to calls for ryan to be banned from twitch completely, given that it was his main vehicle for finding and grooming his victims.

it is unknown why he decided to do this, as it is transparently very stupid, but i think the entire series of events has made it quite clear that ryan is not only unintelligent, but EXTREMELY entitled - ryan couldnt last even a week into the new year before trying to lay the groundwork to return to his career, whereas adam managed to go quiet much earlier and remain that way for a much longer time, to let things cool off more significantly.

WEEK 11, DAY 6 (january 8th):

early in the morning, the owner of kiwifarms, null, posts a thread stating that adam kovic has reached out demanding the removal of his and jess kovic’s nude photos and videos. (reminder that i will not be linking to any threads on kf directly - you will have to seek those out for yourself.) 

recall that, in the initial days of the scandal, the vast majority of the attention was on adam instead of ryan - and that was because of the sheer magnitude of his leaked photos, as well as the question of his wifes consent to their distribution (as most of the pictures/videos of her were taken from behind; with the benefit of hindsight, we can say fairly safely that she probably did not consent to the distribution, and possibly not their being taken either). 

im not exactly sure on the legality of the situation, as null did not leak the photos himself but is allowing them to be hosted on his website, and adam himself would likely be found guilty of revenge porn due to him having been the one to send pictures of his wife without her permission in the first place. as for the pictures of adam himself, i would assume that null is somehow protected from prosecution or else i believe he would have already taken them down. the morality of leaving them up is EXTREMELY questionable, and i would say it probably is tipping over the line into morally wrong, but morality holds very little sway legally and so adam may not actually have any recourse here.

WEEK 13, DAY 4 (january 20th)

in the afternoon, its confirmed by twitter account @streamerbans that ryan haywood has been permabanned from twitch, and has lost his partnership with the website as well. this is obviously SUPER fucking late, as the crux of the scandal happened months ago (in october), but better late than never, i suppose.

his ban seems to be a natural consequence of two things: the obvious catalyst is his VERY bold message to his subscriber, but beyond that, twitch has also updated their rules and codes of conduct to address their handling of sexual harassment on their platform, from fans and streamers alike, and ryans actions fall very clearly over the line of acceptability. while its unknown whether ryans actions have anything to do with the drafting of some of the new rules - the rule against “attempting to coerce others into sexual favors via bribes” specifically seems VERY pointed at him - it is likely that twitch was already drafting these rules before the situation occurred, and ryans doings simply expedited their being put into effect.

in any case, the only sad part of this is how long it took; ryan was getting free money off of his fans who hadnt or couldnt unsubscribe for three months before this ban and the loss of his partnership were put into effect, which is very upsetting, but there isnt much that can be done about it now.

(JAN 30 EDIT: as you can tell, the situation has severely petered out from where it began; originally there were new updates and more information on a daily, almost hourly basis, and so it was necessary to break the story up day by day to get everything. since that is no longer the case, i will not be filling in any gaps between time periods; if something else happens two weeks from now, i will not try to fill in the two week silence, and will just skip to the next big event. apologies if this makes timelines confusing, but ive added weeks AND days to each event to make them easier to follow, so hopefully that helps.

any further updates to this post will go here, to keep the timeline together. everything below this line is optional reading, but i do highly recommend it, as it provides a lot of background context.)

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MISCELLANEOUS INFO

this is just a section for anything i think is contextually relevant that doesnt really fit anywhere else, or stuff that is not confirmed but highly suspicious. most of this will provide elucidating background for everything that went down, but none of it is necessary to read. 

LOOKING BACK AT RYAN’S CONTENT:

because of how blindsiding these events have been, people began questioning if there were any tells that we as viewers missed over the years, and began going through old videos and other content to find anything of interest. ill link any relevant videos here with a brief summary of why theyre noteworthy:

- this video features ryan encouraging fans to do “whatever [they] need to get [themselves] to finish” (in reference to masturbating), and when trevor states that “there are laws that constrain us,” ryan says that “as long as you do it [in your head], it’s fine.” here he is clearly justifying his own actions to himself.

- this clip of ryan singing “black or white” by michael jackson, but he changes the lyrics to, “thing about my baby, it dont matter if youre black or white - or 12, or 9, or 8.” yeah.... i dont really need to say much else about that i dont think

- this post about ryan’s cover letter from his initial application to rt. the comment about “that sexy, deep voice that ladies love” wouldve been gross even without context, but with it, it appears that playing casanova with fans may have been his intent from the beginning.

- another video in which ryan “misses his flight because of uber.” he states that he missed his flight because the uber driver who was supposed to arrive didnt want to come and asked him to cancel the drive, forcing him to wait for another driver to be available. while they dont say explicitly, i am fairly certain hes talking about returning from pax west in seattle, which took place in early september - around the time that many of these stories (like tessa’s and michelle’s) take place. more likely than not, he fully lied about this story and was actually late because he was hooking up with a fan.

WHY 2017?:

if you’re paying attention to dates, you may notice that almost all of these events transpired - or began - in 2017. there are a few theories as to why, but ultimately i think the answer is quite simple; 2017 is when ryan made an instagram account, and is likely when he had the most direct access to fans. as was noted, he has had twitter for years and his snapchat was created probably a year or two before, and yet there are little to no stories taking place before 2017. most likely, his making an instagram account saw an influx of messages from fans, primarily teenage girls - a huge demographic on insta - and gave him a platform to begin the grooming process without anyone suspecting him.

CONJECTURE PT. 1: THE MEGGENING:

people began to speculate if ryan and meg are/were having an affair, as they spent quite a bit of time together for work, went on a trip to japan alone together, and have been the center of many a “joke” regarding their relationship, to the point of it sincerely bothering gavin (meg’s boyfriend). there are several clips of the achievement hunter guys making jokes about ryan and meg sleeping together behind gavin’s back, but heres one clip of them doing so with gavin in the room. notice his genuinely uncomfortable reaction.

initially i was ready to write this off as “women evil” conjecture, but honestly after looking into it a bit, i can sincerely see what people are talking about. as i said earlier, i find meg’s statement incredibly suspicious - the fact that she explicitly denies any knowledge of ryan’s doings even though that SHOULD go without saying, and that her message doesnt actually say anything negative about ryan or what he did at all, makes me feel extremely wary of her. 

OCT. 12 EDIT: either yesterday or the day before, meg privated most of the highlights from her japan trip with ryan, but a few of them were luckily archived. here they are, if you’re curious: japan #1, japan #2, japan #3.

CONJECTURE PT. 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:

in early february, its discovered that ryan haywoods home is up for sale, and has been for quite a while. (i will not be linking the listing for obvious reasons.) the house had been on the market for 63 days at that time, placing its initial listing date in very early december - that would only be two months after the initial story broke. on top of that, with the inclusion of the amount of time it takes to find a realtor and begin the selling process, the selling of the house was likely initiated in mid-to-late november, if not sooner.

there are multiple potential explanations for the selling of the house, of course - its possible they could no longer afford the upkeep due to ryan losing his highly lucrative job, or its possible that they moved to escape harassment from others. i find both of these fairly implausible for different reasons: the former because ryans wife also has a fairly high-paying job, and unless ryan is a complete dumbass, they certainly have enough money saved up to remain in that house if they wanted to. in addition, i find the latter implausible because its highly unlikely anyone was going to their house directly, as i think ryan would definitely have played the victim publicly over something like that.

the most obvious answer to me, given how quickly the house was put up for sale, is that the two have begun divorce proceedings and thus sold the house. finances as a motivator make no sense to me due to the speed with which the house was put up - its highly unlikely they blew through all of their savings in a month - and if they were staying together as a couple, it wouldnt make sense to vacate their home for no reason. of course, this is complete conjecture (thus the header LMAO), but it is interesting to note as it comes into direct contradiction with ryans claims of going to couples therapy with his wife.

RYAN’S TACTICS:

due to the number of accusations against ryan now, a pretty clear picture is painted of him and how he operates. a few things become clear when you put all of this information together. lets break it down bit by bit.

first: the girls. as i mentioned before, michelle notes in her video that ryan seemed to target young girls who were either insecure about themselves/their bodies, or had mental health issues. that pattern does seem to hold up, as all seven of the major accusers (tessa, michelle, leigh, kayla, katie, anon, and megashiny) openly discuss dealing with one or both of these issues in their respective stories. it’s almost undeniable that ryan pursued these types of girls on purpose in order to manipulate them more easily, as well as to have plausible deniability when confronted about them - a phrase which multiple girls have used in reference to him.

second: the method. ryan seems to have consistently used the exact same method of manipulating each of the girls. it goes pretty much like this:

- in early conversations, he is sweet and invested in the girl. once they are a bit more comfortable, he begins to “flirt,” making sexual comments and “jokes” to slowly but surely convince them to sext and exchange nudes with him.

- at the same time, he is sure to tell everyone he knows (mods and the like) about how “crazy” his girl of the week is, guaranteeing that she will not be believed should she try to tell someone what is going on between them

- once the conversations turn sexual, his demeanor changes completely, and he starts to become distant. conversations with him become infrequent to make the girl feel miserable when he is away and over the moon when he decides to talk to her, thus maintaining the constant star-struck feeling and ensuring that she is always just a bit more eager to do what he asks in order to keep him around

- he makes sure to litter conversations with comments about how much he loves his wife and kids, thus ensuring that the girl feels too guilty to let anyone know whats going on at the risk of damaging his relationship with his family

- once he has the girls backed into this corner, he begins reaching out only to talk about sex and to schedule in-person hook ups, and will not talk to the girls otherwise. this goes on over and over until he gets bored or the girl cuts contact with him.

he is consistent with this “defaming, denial, degrading” method, as we can see every single girl make reference to him treating them in the same way. from this, we can conclude one thing - he has a system. he has done this before, and he knows it works. even the girl with the most different experience, katie, was clearly being groomed and sexually coerced with the promise of payment, but when she did not budge ryan switched over to straight up financial manipulation, forcing her to take the money - and therefore making her financially beholden to him - and threatening her with cut contact should she not accept.

ryan also tried to isolate katie from her best friend, kayla, in an effort to prevent her from noticing that he was manipulating and grooming kayla for sex as well, and given that kayla was bullied so thoroughly in HIS community that he was one of the only people she felt safe around, it’s no wonder why he refused to deal with the situation when trick brought it up to him. these are straight up abuser tactics, and while i hesitate to throw that word around, it is clear that ryan is a dangerous, emotionally manipulative sexual predator, who specifically targeted young girls with little to no experience with sex and relationships. he is disgusting, and cruel, and i pray that he experiences the pain he inflicted on these girls ten times over.