My experience with Ryan Haywood.
Some backstory before mine tale be told: I’ve been a fan of Rooster Teeth since 2012. I was born in 1997 and
had just turned 20 when this took place in 2017.
I did not sleep with him, but I know somebody once close to me who has. Their story is theirs to tell, if they wish to do it. This is going to be about my experience of the Haywood power dynamics over a small group of us who knew what was happening. I’m also going to make this as upbeat as I can, because I know several recent documents have chilled me to my core. This one is a bit lighter at least, but
we still flirted, we both received suggestive pictures, and I was, of course, lied to. I think it’s more about the number of young people affected than anything else, and his reach went far. This does talk about friends of mine who knew what was going on, and I want to stay anonymous to protect their privacy. Some of them have experiences to tell, and again that’s their choice to make.
I first messaged him in March 2017, around the time he got his snapchat. I was in a group chat at this time with around six other RT fans, all around the same age; 19 to mid twenties or so.
We all live in the UK, and while we have a strong community over here, we're separated from Achievement Hunter and RTX by the Atlantic, and being broke teens/YAs most of us couldn't really afford to go to any conventions in the US. We were BUZZING when Ryan downloaded snapchat. We could actually TALK to him. We were all sending long-ass sappy messages about how RT got us through the hard times, how godly everyone at RT was, typical adoring little dorky shit. Now,
I have anxiety and BPD, and I was essentially a sexual tornado at that age (I know it’s only been 3 years but you grow up quickly in this ridiculous timeline).
I was a real fat kid, and after 20 years I finally had a body I could be proud of. I don’t have all our messages saved, but Ryan knew this - as mentioned, I’d sent him some soliloquy about how RT helped me come out of my chubby shell, yada yada, I’ve made friends and gotten out more, yknow, pedestal stuff. When he responded, I rang my closest friend and just, like, started screaming. Other friends in my group chat were receiving responses, and we were FREAKED. Man, it was such a simpler time.
I don’t remember whose idea it was, it very well may have been mine, but
a few of us within that group decided to be reckless and stupid, and send him nudes. My choice was my own, and
why I sent nudes to a married man I honestly don’t know. Most likely hormones. I was finally “sexy” and wanted to feel like it, I guess. I was too scared to save our sexts on snapchat, but we did it twice. I felt like the most special person in the world.
At this point I was kinda shocked by the “if i wasn’t a married man” comment. I had asked to send it beforehand and definitely implied what the content was going to be (lots of winky faces), but it was still weird to hear from, like, a dad. I took a picture from a different phone and sent it to the group chat. And then I learned that several of my friends had also gotten flirty messages from him.
He sent us nudes back, even sent us snaps during breaks on his streams. We were excitable - and being that age, all sexed up - and some of my friends continued this relationship.
One flew out on her own dime to sleep with him. Being naive,
I continued talking to him too until we decided that shit was getting weird, and most of us wanted no part in it. So we stopped, but
we knew a couple of people who were still having regular sexual chats with the fucker. He was telling my friends they were so beautiful he couldn’t bear for their relationship to stop, even though he felt guilty. Of course, he lied to us again:
And then came RTXL 2018. We all went as a group for the weekend and watched AH stream a game live onstage on the Saturday, I think it was Forza. We all knew full well by this point Ryan was cheating on his wife, and it was an amazing weekend but still a bit awkward. Which was made a bit more awkward when Lawrence pulled me out of the crowd and sat me AT RYANS’ SEAT. NEXT to him. By this point, I’d told him how I/we felt about his sexting (screenshot above) and he had told us he was stopping (which of course, he hadn’t). I had a good feeling he definitely recognised me when I hugged him, and then when he sat next to me and ran me through everything, playing the game with me. We were in front of hundreds of people and I was emotionally peeing all over the stage.
Would he ban me from the community? Would he recognise me?
Would we go and have sex? I was feeling every emotion possible about this man after I had been plucked anime-style from a crowd into his arms and made to play a game with him I knew I would suck at in front of hundreds of people, so I just focused all my energy into not sucking. (I failed.) Ryan leaned over me several times, chatted to me onstage,
held my hands over the controller like the WHOLE TIME and I believe he put his arm around me a few times. I now realise this was a manipulation tactic to overwhelm me with conflicting feelings and keep me quiet. I got off stage and ran back to my friends, who were all losing their shit. I was absolutely buzzing, and in a blind love for an older celebrity figure.
It was a happy moment, but in hindsight, we knew this man was a serial cheater who went after young, vulnerable women in his community. It’s a very different moment now, thinking back on it, but
I was ecstatic and my friends were so happy for me mainly due to his manipulation. He was personal with us, special with us. He knew where I was going to university. He knew my home borough, he knew what games I loved, he even talked about my friends in our group chat. He was manipulating a whole group of us at once, including the male members who idolised him. He knew I didn't approve, and he still got so close to me. It made me feel so special, and I couldn't hate him after that. We started messaging again that night, even though it had been a few months since we’d talked at that point:
I mentioned that my experience wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the poor women and girls who were emotionally manipulated or sexually abused by Ryan. And it isn’t, I sent him pictures when I was young and naive. My actions are my own. However,
looking back on how all of my close friends were also manipulated, kept quiet and never came forward, I am furious. How on earth he thought he could get away with this I have no idea. He was sexting three of us, fucked one, and manipulated the rest. This was a chat of 8 people. I have no respect or sympathy for this man. He somehow kept a whole group of us quiet for three years, and I still can’t quite get over that. He saw
the scars on my arms, he told me I was beautiful, and he manipulated me. It’s a weird thought I haven’t really dwelled on yet.
I know my actions were wrong, but they were also inevitable. There's no way with my naivete at that age and mental state I wasn't going to pursue something like that with him, especially when my friends were doing it too. I was immature and starstruck. I'm truly sorry any of this happened, it's brought so much pain.
I’m not really sure how to finish, except that we truly thought we knew the full story, that he was a cheater and a flirt. He was a sexually violent predator who took money from adoring fans for his children and threw them at young, vulnerable women. We have been just as floored by everything that has been going on. We knew part of the story, and it hurt living with that, but the full story is more painful than we imagined. We need to heal from this, and wait for the day when Ryan is a distant, uncomfortable memory.
