Minecraft YouTuber and Twitch star Bashurverse passes away after battle with illness

Twitch streamer and Minecraft YouTube star Brandon “Bashurverse” Ashur, now known as ToastyTime, passed away on September 13, his family has now confirmed, after an extended battle with COVID-19 and pneumonia.

Ashur’s family confirmed the news on Monday, Sep. 13.

His sister, Anesa, wrote on Facebook: “My brother fought COVID, and unfortunately lost the battle. I cannot believe this is happening… He was amazing. He is amazing.”

“There are so many things I could say, but I don’t think I could even put our lives into words if I wanted to,” she continued. “Why is this beast so terrible? Why did it have to get you? You have faced so many challenges in your 36 years, never would I imagine we would lose you to a pandemic.”

The long-time YouTube star was first admitted to hospital on August 14, after an initial positive diagnosis on August 7. He spent four days in the regular ward, before being moved to the ICU, where he was put on a ventilator.

Ashur gave updates to his fans on Twitter near-daily amid his illness.

On August 26, while in the hospital, the YouTuber wrote: “Thank you for all the love and support, you guys are helping me fight this more than you know.”

Ashur originally rose to internet fame on YouTube via his scripted Minecraft series “The Legend of the Hobo,” as well as his ‘BashDoesThings’ vlog series.

The streaming star originally went by the name Bashurverse, but abandoned the title following a two-year hiatus between 2017 and 2019. He returned under the moniker “Toasty Time,” and focused primarily on Twitch streaming.

Between September 2019 and earlier this month, Ashur ⁠— streaming under the name “Toasty” ⁠— climbed to just over 167k followers on Twitch.

The internet star’s YouTube channel currently has 1.58m followers.

In early 2015, the YouTuber threatened to quit after rumors began circulating that he had allegedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl when he was 23. The accusations surfaced the same week Ashur hit 1 million subscribers.

The rumors boiled over into a full-blown internet controversy after DramaAlert’s Daniel ‘Keemstar’ Keem began reporting on the news.

It was this reporting that originally spurred Ashur to suggest he would “quit forever,” before he appeared in a one-on-one episode with the famous podcaster in an attempt to share his side of the story.

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Toasty, then Bashurverse, posted several videos on the accusations, including a quickly-deleted “explanation”. The reports were never confirmed either way.