The Shady Side Of Tfue

Turner "Tfue" Tenney is a controversial figure in the streaming world, to say the least. Though he's likely best known for his Fortnite competitive play and his legal battle with his former bros in FaZe Clan, there have been plenty of moments throughout his career that have given pause to even his most hardcore fans. We're not just talking about Tfue's longstanding feud with Ninja, either. 

Some might say that all of the controversies have paid off. At the very least, they haven't stopped Tfue from gaining massive popularity. The streamer has millions of subscribers on Twitch and has found an audience that appreciates his willingness to speak his mind. This has led him into confrontations with some other streamers and celebrities, but it has also secured his place in gaming history. With that in mind, let's take a look at the shady side of Tfue.

In a rather embarrassing moment, Tfue gave away another streamer's private phone number to his viewers. The snafu occurred when Tfue accidentally showed his viewers a private chat between himself and MrBeast discussing a charity event that MrBeast would be streaming. The messages were only on the screen for a few moments, but viewers were able to grab both MrBeast's phone number and the code that would get them into the private event chat.

Within minutes, the chat was being spammed by troublemaking viewers, some of whom were filling up the charity stream's chat log with racial slurs. MrBeast had to pull the plug on his stream momentarily. Tfue was immediately apologetic and encouraged his viewers to join him in donating to MrBeast's stream when the tournament was back up and running.

However, this slip-up drew the ire of another fairly large streamer. According to Ninja, other streamers weren't supposed to be going live with the event anyway, so that viewers would be more likely to join the main event and donate. Unfortunately, Tfue's decision to stream the event from his perspective led to a mistake that could have killed it.

While Tfue continues to play Fortnite competitively, one of his accounts received a permanent ban back in 2018. There were a few different reasons originally given for the ban. At the time, Tfue said that it was because Epic Games overall dislikes him and his style of gameplay. Tfue's frequent partner Cloak cosigned this reason, saying that it was because Tfue kept exploiting glitches in the game while streaming.

It made sense that Tfue might have been held accountable for using exploits, even though he hadn't been outright cheating. However, it was eventually revealed that Tfue had been banned for something else entirely. According to an Epic Games employee on Reddit, Tfue had participated in buying and selling Fortnite accounts, which is in violation of Epic's terms of service. However, rather than banning Tfue outright, it seems that Epic instead decided to ban an account that Tfue had purchased. This worked out nicely for the streamer, since he both learned his lesson and didn't have to leave the game forever.

In 2018, Tfue received a suspension from Twitch over a turn of phrase that some have argued was taken out of context. Without repeating the phrase here, this is what happened: Tfue claims that he was making fun of a character's resemblance to a raccoon. However, some people thought he was using an outdated derogatory term, which resulted in a 30-day suspension. In an attempt to clear the air, Tfue later posted a video to YouTube explaining his side of the story. It appears that this may have had some effect on Twitch's decision, as the suspension was then lessened to just seven days.

In September 2019, Tfue was again called out by fans for using a racial slur during a Twitch stream. There was some speculation that this could lead to a permanent ban, but it seems as though Twitch never acted upon this instance. It's also worth noting that Tfue seems to have learned from his mistakes in this area. When FaZe Dubs was suspended from FaZe Clan for a similar incident, Tfue owned up to his past mistakes as he came to the young gamer's defense.

Despite being a competitive Fortnite player himself, Tfue occasionally seems to actively dislike the game. In fact, he has previously called into question the very legitimacy of the Fortnite competitive scene.

In a memorable diatribe against the game, Tfue told his viewers, "In my eyes, Fortnite is not a competitive game ... and you are not a pro player, because this game does not have a competitive side to it." He added, "If you're a competitive Fortnite player, you're living in a fantasy land because this game is so far from competitive."

Again, this is kind of a puzzling statement coming from someone who regularly plays the game competitively. Another of Tfue's notable anti-Fortnite rants came when the streamer was fed up with dealing with players watching his stream just so they could find and kill him in-game.

An exhausted-looking Tfue rubbed his eyes and said, "The Fortnite community is f—ing garbage, it's filled with a bunch of f—ing immature 12-year-old stream sniping pieces of s—t. They have nothing going for them in life, So all they do is just f—ing cheat."

In June 2020, pro Fortnite player Zayt accused Tfue and five other pros of cheating in some now-deleted tweets published by Fortnite Intel. Zayt's specific charge was that the players were using macros during competitive play. For those unfamiliar, macros allow a player to map multiple inputs to a single button or keystroke. This can make certain in-game tasks much easier for the player, but it also means that the player would be operating outside of how the game was meant to be played. 

In other words, the use of macros in Fortnite during competitive play would definitely be considered cheating.

According to Zayt, he has solid proof that Tfue has used macros in the past. However, he did not elaborate on this point any further. This may be because, according to the prior Fortnite Intel piece, many of the pros that Zayt accused have since responded and he seems to have backed off from his claims. While Tfue doesn't appear to have responded to the allegations, Zayt also has not been forthcoming with any of the proof he claimed to have.

The Fortnite team of Tfue, Cloak, and 72hrs had been going strong for quite some time. That's why fans of the squad were surprised when Tfue tweeted, "Looking for New Permanent Trio who take Competitive Seriously."

Fans immediately asked him during a stream why he was done with his pals. Tfue explained that he turned down hosting a Madden 20 promotional stream, which would have earned him $140,000 from EA. He had done this so that his team could play a Fortnite tournament, so he was extra dismayed to discover that they had taken the Madden gigs on the same night without telling him. According to Tfue, it cost him money and a chance at participating in the tournament.

According to Dexerto, Cloak and 72hrs believed the whole issue came down to a lack of communication on Tfue's part. Making matters worse, Cloak insinuated that Tfue's fans were coming after him as well, slamming him for "costing" Tfue $140,000. Overall, Tfue's frustration was understandable, but it was a little shocking to see him write off his longtime partners just like that. Tfue later told his fans that he refused to even consider forgiving Cloak.

Despite how Tfue may feel about the existence of competitive Fortnite, he has done pretty well for himself playing the game. In fact, some players feel that he may be playing the system in an improper way.

Following one week's Fortnite Cash Cup, Team NRG's Unknown tweeted, "Tfue switches accounts when hes doing bad everytime to reset the cup? Can I do that too?"

In other words, Unknown was frustrated at Tfue swapping between multiple accounts to try to rack up better scores over the course of a Cash Cup.

This didn't sit well with several of Unknown's followers, and the original tweet was shared over 100 times as a result. Meanwhile, at least one player thought that Tfue was only getting away with this because of the exposure he brings Fortnite through his viewership. While it would seem that this is an unorthodox manner of getting better results, it's actually not explicitly against the rules. In other words, though it may be frowned upon, Tfue didn't technically do anything illegal.

In 2020, Tfue seemingly found a new way of entertaining both himself and his viewers. Using an online service, he started hiring women to play Fortnite with him during streams. The first time he did it, he finished his stream by telling them that he was actually Ninja the whole time. He then muted himself and laughed while the women he'd been playing with suddenly started flipping out and telling him what huge fans they were.

The second time, Tfue hired a group of "egirls" to play with him, he kicked his trolling up a notch. He purposefully threw the matches he played with them, at one point even jumping to his death while his teammates scrambled to try to win. Eventually, one of the girls seemed to have figured out who they were actually playing with. At this point, she started promoting her channel because she apparently knew she was on Tfue's stream. While she did so, Tfue made a cringing face towards the camera, making fun of her without her knowing.

In late 2019, Tfue and his teammates — Khanada, Fiber, and Cloak — exploded at each other following a poor performance in a Fortnite Champion Series game. Things came to a head when Tfue was killed in the game and the team placed 25th overall. Though the team had spent the match getting progressively frustrated, Tfue's elimination resulted in insults and swear words being hurled at one another.

Tfue stood up from his chair and shouted, "Bro, what the f—k are you doing, Fiber?" The team then quit the tournament and took their frustrations to social media.

Cloak insinuated that other teams were landing in the same spot as Tfue and his teammates in an effort to target them. In a tweet that has since been deleted (but was published by Dexerto), Fiber called Khanada "immature." Fiber later apologized, but the ensuing backlash from other streamers was rather harsh. Many expressed disbelief at how Tfue and his teammates handled the situation. In particular, Ninja was of the opinion that the internet would have had a field day with him if he had reacted like that or talked to his teammates in such a way.