'Overwatch' Pro Accused Of Grooming "Special Needs" Teenager

The following news story contains references to grooming.

Professional Overwatch player Owen 'Prov1de' Warner has been accused of grooming a 16-year-old girl after messages were shared on social media supposedly showing an exchange between the 23-year-old London Spitfire support player and a teenager by the name of Emma.

Emma - who is now 19-years-old - shared the screenshots of a Discord conversation to Twitter, detailing the alleged conversation that took place between herself and Prov1de several years prior when he was supposedly 20-years-old.

Elaborating on the screenshots, Emma tweeted, "Me: Immature 16-year-old in special needs school. Provide: 20-year-old living on his own, grown adult." The accompanying screenshots detail messages of a sexual nature allegedly from Prov1de to Emma.

Messages contained within the screenshots read, "I want to show u my bulge" and "I don't know how u truly feel about our age difference but I hope we become closer." The Discord user, seen with the username 'rem' appears to write "I do think you're pretty handsome which is weird considering you're 4 years younger than me. A lot of people my age would have a problem with me saying that."

Emma continued to share details of the alleged encounter to Twitter stating that there would be "more tweets." Referring to the screenshots she posted, Emma wrote, "There is so f***king many of him also gaslighting me. Sorry if it takes times, it's really f***king hard." Later, further Discord screenshots were posted to Twitter where messages read "Do you like d**k?" and "ur 16 ... I keep forgetting ... stop being so mature."

Prov1de's team London Spitfire appear to have responded to the allegations releasing the following statement, "We were recently made aware of a code of conduct violation involving one of our contracted players, Owen 'Prov1de' Warner. We have mutually parted ways with Prov1de, effective immediately, following the results of an internal investigation."

The statement continued, "Thank you for your patience as we looked into the matter and for holding us accountable."

Prov1de's behaviour was pulled into question in 2020 when the professional gamer was dropped from the Los Angeles Valiant after messages detailing the use of racial slurs appeared online prompting the player to apologise and step back from his career. He returned to the competitive Overwatch scene last year.

At the time of writing, Prov1de has not responded to the allegations.