GrandGrant removed From EG amid sexual harassment accusations
Evil Geniuses announced they will be releasing famed Dota 2 personality Grant “GranDGranT” Harris from the organization. The decision follows a recent controversy with several women alleging sexually harrassment from his part. Over the past two days, there have been multiple allegations aimed at Harris, for inappropriate conduct towards women.
The organization quickly jumped to action and removed him from the organization. They did however state that most of the allegations point towards events taking place before he was a part of Evil Geniuses.
How did we get here?
Twitter user cofactorstrudel, shared the first story about the TI7 afterparty and a certain hand-grabby individual.
She later clarified the person who wouldn’t let go off her hand was in fact Grant Harris. The aggressive sex propositor has not yet been identified. Following the initial accusation, Anthony Hodgson accused Grant of harassing streamer/caster LlamaDownUnder to the point where she had to retire from Dota 2 entirely. Further accusations were then levied across as well.
At a certain point, Grant himself Tweeted he would be retiring from Dota 2 and esports entirely as a result of the accusations.
“I just want to apologize to everyone in the Dota Scene, the things I have done in the past really are Just horrible to look back on. I have worked on myself over the last few years , and have tried to better understand people and better understand me.”
What comes next is up for debate. Most of the commentary is urging any and all involved parties to seek help within the system, and if there is enough proof to go by take the matter to court. Others are defending Grant, and stating that most of the cases are blown out of proportion just to pile on the caster.
Regardless, a series of accusations usually don’t fall out of the sky. And if there was even an inkling of inappropriate behavior, it needs to be stamped out immediately. The Dota 2 scene is a toxic place by nature, further worsening it with this type of behavior is doing nobody any favors.
What the future holds
We do hope this was a one-off case, as many are already alleging the industry is plight with this type of behavior. If that is really the case, we hope more people step forward so we can put an end this sort of behavior in the ecosystem.
Finally, this is a notice for all the esports organizations to keep a better practice when hiring talent and figure out proper conduct guidelines for all employees regardless of status or tradition within the Dota 2 space.
