16-year-old Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf is the Fortnite World Cup solo champion, which he recently won at the end of July. The teenager won $3 million at the event, which featured a number of high-profile players competing in multiple divisions. This also appears to have drawn something of a target on his back, as Bugha was reportedly swatted this weekend.
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Swatting, for anyone blissfully unaware, refers to the act where someone fakes a report to the police of an incredibly dangerous situation in an attempt to draw out a SWAT team or an equivalent response to a designated location. The dangerous practice is known for being carried out against streamers, where the events are sometimes captured in real time. Though Bugha’s stream didn’t show the police bursting in or anything of the sort, it does show him reacting to the events as they unfolded, leaving his computer in the middle of a game, and returning to then describe what went down.
In the video below, clipped from Bugha’s stream by Dot Esports, you can watch from Bugha’s perspective as it all goes down during a game with fellow pro players Timothy “Bizzle” Miller and Danny “Dubs” Walsh. “I got swatted?” Bugha can be heard saying, apparently to his dad.
“They come in with guns, bro,” Bugha said on stream after the fact, which you can check out below. “Like, they literally pulled up. Holy shit. That’s scary. What if I just got popped?”
Thankfully, there appears to have been no significant disruption or unfortunate impact on Bugha and his family’s lives, as one of the officers that responded to Bugha’s house apparently lived in his neighborhood and was familiar with the professional Fortnite player. Regardless of outcome, swatting remains an incredibly dangerous — and illegal — practice.
You can check out more of our previous, extensive coverage of Fortnite right here.
