While some games, like Overwatch, will be celebrating Pride Month with in-game skins and events, Fortnite decided to go the unorthodox route this June by adding a VTuber who has been shown using homophobic slurs on stream to the game as a sidekick.
TheBurntPeanut is a streamer who uses a VTuber costume of a peanut, has historically been known for playing games like Arc Raiders and Marathon, and has amassed millions of followers across Twitch, Instagram, and YouTube in recent years. He also hosts a regular segment called “Slur Saturday” and has gone viral for a bit of sorts in which he claimed to become so frustrated while playing Arc Raiders that he simply had to use a slur, and then bleeping out many of the words that followed. However, he has also just straight-up dropped the f-slur on an Escape from Tarkov stream without bleeping it, which you can hear below. Content warning for slurs, of course:
This REALLY the guy you want to add to your game at the start of pride month? @Fortnite pic.twitter.com/GoT2L1NEYy
— Seven (@Se7enTSF) May 31, 2026
The streamer’s inclusion in Fortnite has been met with backlash from fans, with several sharing the Tarkov clip from last year with Epic Games employees. Though, as you can probably expect, there are plenty of people downplaying the controversy and deploying the “Call of Duty lobby” justification, often used to excuse the use of slurs and inappropriate language in online games by asserting that they’re a sort of “anything goes” space.
“I genuinely don’t understand how this happened,” a ResetEra user said in a thread on the matter. “Did no one even bother to do a background check here?”
“SLUR SATURDAY”
this who y’all adding to the game btw @fortnite pic.twitter.com/kgNg2OLfbv
— Ausla! (@Au5la) May 31, 2026
https://t.co/4wyXgAH9Gu pic.twitter.com/P4ouVlnijN
— Molten (@MoItenManiac) May 31, 2026
Tim Sweeney loves when the Burnt Peanut uses slurs on his stream.
— JamBudd (@JamBudds_) May 31, 2026
In the past, TheBurntPeanut has told viewers that inappropriate language may be incoming while playing games like Arc Raiders, where proximity chat means that the comments of other players, which could potentially include offensive language, may be heard as you approach them, and he’s even apologized to viewers who have heard other players use it during his streams, but it’s clear that his own use of derogatory language is still fresh in some Fortnite fans’ minds.
Despite the slur-dropping controversy, TheBurntPeanut has been part of promotional deals with games like Marathon, and won the Best VTuber award at the Streamer Awards in December. So it’s unclear whether this is a case of Epic Games not being aware of this, or simply not caring because of his massive following. We’ve reached out to the company for comment on the situation and will update the story if we hear back.