Pokimane and Atrioc Deepfake Controversy: Full Timeline

Pokimane has reopened the Atrioc deepfake controversy more than three years after it first broke. On an October 25, 2026 stream, she said that seeing Atrioc’s name or face causes her “a lot of discomfort and anxiety,” and the next day she explained on X that the deepfake page shown on his stream in 2023 was of her. Atrioc responded on October 27, calling her feelings “totally valid” and saying he had pulled out of a planned TwitchCon appearance this year.

Here is everything that has happened between the two streamers, from the January 2023 stream that started it to this week.

What happened between Pokimane and Atrioc in 2023?

In late January 2023, Atrioc, whose real name is Brandon Ewing, showed a browser tab on his Twitch stream for a website that sold sexual AI deepfakes of female streamers. Pokimane, Maya Higa and QTCinderella were among the women on the site, and Sweet Anita later found her name connected to it too. We reported at the time that Atrioc had been caught paying for deepfakes of fellow streamers.

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Atrioc apologised on stream on January 30, 2023. He admitted he had paid for access to the site, said he found it through an ad while reading about AI and deepfake technology, and said it was a one-time visit. He stepped back from streaming and from Offbrand, the agency he co-founded with Ludwig Ahgren and others.

QTCinderella, a close friend of Atrioc before the incident, spoke out as the clip spread. She said being seen naked against your will “should NOT BE A PART OF THIS JOB,” and she later ended the friendship.

To help the women affected, Atrioc sent $60,000 to a law firm to cover legal fees for takedown requests against sites hosting the deepfakes, and worked with Ceartas, a company that files takedown notices, according to his Wikipedia page. He returned to streaming in March 2023.

Why did Pokimane speak out about Atrioc in 2026?

Pokimane said her discomfort grew as Atrioc became more involved with people and events close to her. She pointed to Ludwig and QTCinderella’s wedding, where her close friends were around him. “There’s been a lot of cognitive dissonance seeing my friends be put in close proximity of him,” she said on stream on October 25.

In her X post on October 26, she said people seemed to have forgotten that “the specific page shown on his stream was of me.” She said she stayed quiet in 2023 because she was “so uncomfortable, publicly humiliated.”

She also put a number on the cost. Pokimane said Atrioc offered her $3,000 towards takedown efforts, while she has personally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars removing deepfake content of herself. “No amount of money undoes what happened,” she wrote. She added that she was not trying to cancel Atrioc or tell anyone who to be friends with, and that she did not think anyone had asked the women affected how they felt.

It is not the first time Pokimane has spoken about her likeness being used without consent. Last year she called out an unauthorised AI chatbot built on her likeness.

How did Atrioc respond to Pokimane?

Atrioc answered on stream on October 27. He said Pokimane’s feelings were “totally valid” and that he had “never disagreed with that.” He said he feels terrible, cannot undo what happened, and is trying to show “that’s not who I am.”

He also said he did not know what had prompted her comments now, and pushed back on the wider reaction, saying he did not “appreciate being used as a weapon” and that people who invite him to events should be allowed to do so. He confirmed he has dropped out of a planned TwitchCon appearance this year.