Valkyrae responds to backlash after calling person “fruity” on live stream

YouTube streaming star Valkyrae came under fire after using the word “fruity” on a broadcast in reference to a man during a game of ‘Dating or Siblings’ with friends.

The game ‘Dating or Siblings’ is quite a popular one among content creators at present. As the title suggests, it tasks players with looking at a series of photos of couples and determining whether they’re romantically involved or just siblings.

During a recent session of ‘Dating or Siblings’ with friends, Valkyrae was under the impression that one couple were siblings, claiming that the male person in the photo might not be interested in the opposite sex.

“This is siblings, right?” she mused. “I think Emma’s right. I think he’s fruity.”

Her use of the word to describe the man was purportedly met with backlash in her chat, as the streamer went on to address some complaints from viewers who felt the term was offensive.

“I also wanted to say, I saw chat was kind of freaking out about the ‘fruity’ thing,” she began. “I didn’t even know what fruity meant. I said it because Emma said it, so I thought that it was like, a term to call someone that’s gay, maybe.”

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“I didn’t know it was a bad thing to say,” the streamer continued. “That’s why I stopped saying it. I hope you know that obviously, none of us have any bad intentions or meant it in a way… you know what I mean? Sorry about that if that offended anyone, but I did learn my lesson. Just wanted to be clear about that.”

Rae further addressed the backlash in a subsequent stream, where she also spoke on the “exhausting” fake drama between herself and a GTA RP streamer that had largely been engineered by fans.

For now, it seems that Rae has addressed the issues and is moving on, although critics and viewers are still divided on her use of the term during her broadcast.