On Tuesday, VALORANT women’s team Motif Violet parted with their organizationciting alleged abuse, harassment and an overall “Toxic environment.” The VALORANT team specifically pointed to the poor team culture created by the org’s founder, Jack “Jaws” Willis. Barbora Rebecca, the duelist of the team now known under Karma, spoke out about the org and the reasons they broke away.
“We’ve never been given anything to us except for problems,” ezov said. “So we realized there’s no point in staying.”
ezov acknowledged a growing sense of discomfort in the org, but she said the players had kept their concerns to themselves right up until recently. This was largely due to Willis’s rule that the team could not create any private Discord servers or channels, meaning all their communications would be visible to him and the Motif co-owner.
The team eventually set up a private server where they could recount the incidents that took place while Motif was their org. One of the most pressing concerns was that both Joanne who asked that her full name not be shared and Oline “D0llie” Simmons said that Willis had sexual harassed them.
Motif Esports – How to Leave
Read: https://t.co/aDeECtjoaw
— joanne (@joanne_x8) February 8, 2022
ezov explained how Joanne, her teammate, was playing in the ranked VALORANT queue with Willis before the current Motif Violet iteration had been formed.
“He would say, ‘If you clutch, I will send you nudes,’” ezov said. “And he actually did send [Joanne] nudes after that.”
Joanne shared with the team about a time when Willis told Joanne to look at his screen while he was watching a Discord server that contained inappropriate and graphic videos. ezov said she believes that Willis did not harass her because he knew she was vocal, and because her partner, Karel “Twisten” Aenbrener, who plays for BIG’s VALORANT team, is well known in the esports community.
Willis was not the only one who caused many of the team members’ problems. Some of the incidents were shared by players on Motif Violet’s male counterpart team, Motif Blue. Mercy who asked that her full name not be shared said she was the target of racist remarks from a Motif player’s friend in his Twitch chat. Mercy claimed that the player did not stop the comments and that he actually brushed it over and minimized it.
Mercy tried to raise the issue to Willis but ezov claimed that Mercy’s teammate was initially shut down.
“He told [Mercy] to stop acting out because she was just causing drama,” ezov said.
ezov said eventually Willis told the Motif Blue player to apologize, and he obliged, though incidents with racist remarks allegedly extended to herself and Motif Violet’s coach, who both speak English with a Czech accent. ezov said that another Motif Blue player used to joke about their accents. He has since apologized for his actions to ezov as well as her coach.
Compared to the owner’s alleged actions, however, these were isolated incidents. Motif Violet revealed the extent of their problems under the org on Tuesday. The Motif Blue team followed suit and ended their relationship with the org.
“The boys, most of them did not even know what was happening and supported us after everything has happened and we have told them,” ezov said.
It is not clear if Motif will continue operating as an esports organisation.
Motif violet becomes Karma
When the ex-Motif Violet group met to discuss their future plans, ezov quickly stated that one thing was clear: they wanted to remain together as a team. After cutting ties to Motif, they reformed under Karma.
“We just need to find a name we would play under right now,” ezov said. “If we don’t find an organization, we will compete under the name Karma at the next VCT Game Changers.”
Motif violet, the team placed in the top 24 of the Europe, Middle East, Africa Game Changers event. The team was encouraged by this result, which came after they had only recently started playing together in a group of five. They intend to carry that momentum into upcoming events as well despite the obstacles they’ve had to push past.
“Although [Willis] was telling us before tournaments that we’re boosted, we didn’t really take him in mind,” ezov said. “Once the game had actually started, we focused on what’s important, and that’s winning.”
