While video game player demographics are split almost down the middle — 53% male and 47% female — the gap is vastly wider when it comes to esports. Men dominate the category, taking up 95% of the available spots in game tournaments, while women only account for 5%. So what happens when a skilled male player gets paired with a less experienced group of girl gamers with a $12,000 grand prize on the line? Naturally, they kick him off the team in the name of misogyny.
What happened?
On January 18, 2026, streamer Kingsman265 went live on his channel as he met up with several other players in preparation for a Marvel Rivals tournament with a prize pool of $40,000, with $12,000 going to the winning team to be split among four players. As a rank 1 player himself, Kingsman265 had his eyes set on the prize money, which he planned to use to pay his college tuition, and he actually had a solid shot at winning it. However, during a practice match before the tournament, he quickly realized that his teammates were more interested in feminist politics than in winning.
Proof that he knew what he was doing, his warnings were positioned as insults.
The rest of the team was composed of three female players named Cece, Zazzastack, and Luciyasa. Kingsman265 quickly suggested a change to the team’s character lineup, recommending that they run a triple support setup to give their team the best shot at victory. The pushback was immediate, as the female players rejected his warnings, opting to play with characters they were familiar with instead of using a loadout that was more effective, especially in a tournament setting.
Things went downhill from there. Tensions rose at several points throughout the video, with Cece telling him to shut up after he pleaded his case for a triple support setup, even after he explained that they would lose without it. Another teammate told him to “shut the f**k up” after they lost a practice match, a moment that vindicated Kingsman265, as it displayed the team’s vulnerabilities in real time. Then Cece ended with “this is f**king getting annoying” as Kingsman265 continued to urge the team to change their strategy, to no avail.
The team went their separate ways to play ranked games apart for the night. Shortly after, Kingsman265 learned that he was kicked out of the tournament entirely by the organizer, BasimZB, for his allegedly “toxic” behavior. Basim later admitted that he made the wrong decision based on “misinformation” from Cece and her team.
Kingsman265 was ultimately relegated to the sidelines for the Marvel Rivals tournament, leaving him behind to watch his team get knocked out in the first round, proving that his instincts around their character lineup were correct.
The fallout
As the male gamer in this situation, Kingsman265 was made to look like the bad guy. He was unceremoniously kicked out of the tournament due to his “toxicity” in ganging up on three girl gamers as he tried to spur them to victory. Instead of recognition that his skills, knowledge, and ranking were proof that he knew what he was doing, his warnings were positioned as insults.
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Photo By Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images
It wasn’t until Kingsman265 posted his video of the practice match, along with a conversation between Cece and himself dubbed the Cece Files, that the truth came to light. Not only did Cece and her team want Kingsman265 to be banned from the tournament, but they conspired to remove him, claiming that “there are plenty of people in line who are just as good. Kingsman, like everybody else, is replaceable.”
The aftermath was swift, with the internet quickly turning on the female team in favor of Kingsman265. Despite telling anyone who saw the video not to harass Cece and company, the message exchange between them shows that the internet has no tolerance for liars. She begged Kingsman265 to take down the video — or, at the very least, cut out the incriminating parts that made her and the team look guilty — but he refused, noting that it was a legitimate video. Cece lost several sponsorship deals and partnerships for her behavior.
All’s well that ends well
The whole debacle cost Kingsman265 his shot at a $3,000 grand prize to help pay off his college debt, but what came next was even sweeter. Once he was exonerated of any wrongdoing, Kingsman265 saw a huge boost to his channel, netting 139,000 followers on Twitch (and counting), 10,000 paying subscribers, and instant acceptance into the Twitch Partner Program, which will allow him to earn money for streaming online. As an added bonus, he received more than $3,000 in donations from supporters, surpassing the amount he would have earned from winning the Marvel Rivals tournament, and Marvel Rivals developer NetEase even sent him credits to buy skins for his character.
The good guy won in the end, leaving the all-girls team with a major loss in the tournament, loss in internet clout, and loss in their streaming careers. All of it could have been avoided if they had not made Kingsman265 out to be the toxic misogynist that he wasn’t, but if that had happened, his own gaming career wouldn’t be rocketing through the stratosphere at this very moment.
What happens online lives forever — the lies that are told and the truth that comes through in 4K — and the consequences are unavoidable. This is why it is always important to keep your receipts when tension erupts on the internet. You never know when you’ll have to defend yourself against cheats and liars who think they control the narrative.
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