During a March 27 Fortnite Twitch stream with fellow Twitch streamer Nadeshot, Ninja appears to have used the n-word while singing a song. The song in question is called 44 More which includes the lyrics “Ayy, b—h, I’ve been goin’ and goin’ like the Energizer // I’m supplying the wood like Elijah In the cut, smokin’ on indica // Might f–k around and compartmentalize ya // They say, they say life is a b—h And if that’s the case then I’m finna surprise her.” However, when Ninja recites this specific part of the song, he stumbles over the words and when he gets to the section that mentions indica, the streamer appears to replace the next words with the offensive racial slur. The song does not include the n-word at all and Ninja appears to be ad-libbing.

Clips of the incident are currently doing the rounds on social media, with many people angry and frustrated to see Ninja using the n-word. Many have also called on the streamer to apologize. As some have also noted, even Nadeshot looks taken aback after Ninja says it. As of the time of writing, neither of the streamers have responded to the backlash and according to his Twitter account, Ninja is taking the day off from streaming in order to spend time with his wife.

This incident with Ninja follows several other high-profile incidents of well-known streamers using racial slurs or behaving in a racially insensitive manner. Most notably, PewDiePie came under fire after using the n-word during a stream of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Former Overwatch League player xQc was also dropped from the Dallas Fuel after using Twitch chat emotes in a racially disparaging manner.

As mentioned, Ninja is one of the most high profile players of Fortnite and he makes over half a million dollars each month from streaming on Twitch with the majority of that money coming from people who pay to subscribe to his channel. It’s unclear whether this incident will affect those earnings in any way and whether Twitch will take any action (it took place on Nadeshot’s channel, not Ninja’s) but the streamer will certainly be under close scrutiny from here on out.

UPDATE (March 29th): Ninja has issued an apology following the incident. It reads:

Fortnite is available now in early access for iOS devices, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.