Reckless Turtle
Kraken
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2021
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On July 3, 2020, ZeRo announced that he would be retiring from professional competition following allegations of sending sexual messages to minors when he was 19, and that he would also be ending all of his sponsorships.[20][21] This includes an incident in 2014, where ZeRo allegedly asked "Katie", a 14-year-old girl at the time, to masturbate with ice and to take pictures. He later confessed that the incident was true and that he knew her age, but claimed the second alleged victim he spoke to earlier in 2014, "Laura", lied about her age. ZeRo later made a statement on YouTube, saying he is sorry and is seeking therapy.[22] The following day, Tempo Storm announced that they would be severing ties with ZeRo,[20] with Facebook following suit on July 5, and Twitch on July 23.[23][24] When Inven Global asked the team's CEO, Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk, if he saw "a world in which ZeRo is able to rehabilitate himself and potentially re-join Tempo Storm in some capacity", he responded:
After months of silence, on March 23, 2021, ZeRo's wife Vanessa announced on Twitter that he had attempted suicide and was sent in for further care after being treated in a hospital.[26] On April 26, 2021, ZeRo updated to the community that he successfully recovered from the hospital and has no intention to attempt suicide again.[27] On November 16, 2021, ZeRo uploaded a video to YouTube, stating that he was returning to creating content and retracting his previous admission.[28] On November 30, 2021, ZeRo sued his former roommate Jisu for defamation regarding four allegations she made against him in 2020.[29]"I don't know, I don't like to speculate about the future. I just take things one day at a time, you know? I think ZeRo is a very different person today than he was when he wrote some Skype messages at 19 years old. I think he's had a lot of personal growth over the past few years that I've personally seen, so I'm optimistic about his ability to recover."[25]