Toby Turner, a popular YouTube gaming vlogger known as Tobuscus online, was accused by a former girlfriend of rape and emotional abuse — allegations Turner said are “absolutely false.”
“A person I dated a few years ago has just made some extremely serious, false accusations about me,” Turner said in a YouTube video posted Monday. “And I want to be crystal clear: I have never done anything without her consent.”
On April 8, April Fletcher — known online as April Skywalker and AprilEfff — posted an account on Tumblr about her experiences with Turner, including details of an occasion when he allegedly raped her and another episode when he gave her drugs without her knowledge.
“He’s still abusing and damaging women,” AprilEfff wrote in her post. “There are women with stories similar to mine. He’s still playing his games of multiple girls at a time.” She said she decided to go public with her story after seeing a Tobuscus figure on sale at Toys’R’Us that called him a “hero”: “I’m sorry but a hero doesn’t disrespect, abuse, rape and drug women,” she wrote.
Turner, in his video response, said, “I read her Tumblr post and I was shocked. And I was hurt. These allegations are absolutely false.”
Turner, who has more than 15 million subscribers across his YouTube channels, is affiliated with Disney’s Maker Studios. Last year, he hosted Endemol Beyond USA’s “Legends of Gaming” eSports competition show, and landed a deal with YouTube Red — Google’s ad-free video and music subscription service — for an original scripted comedy, “I Am Tobuscus,” satirizing digital stardom.
Turner is repped by UTA. Reps for Maker Studios, UTA and YouTube did not respond to requests for comment.
To be honest, I believe Toby didn’t do it. When i got abused, I told it right away. I mean it took a lot of strength. But there are a lot of people who fake these kinds of stories. Especially the person has money or they are jealous. I’ve seen it for Pewdiepie and Markiplier, these guys would never do that. Toby would never do that either.
Just heard about this, so I’m late in commenting, but I wanted to say that you can’t base your belief on your own experience or experiences. When I was abused, I didn’t tell right away. Some victims aren’t even sure of what happened to them in the moment because the person who did it is someone they trust and know so they feel confused, vulnerable, and even make excuses in their mind and take time to come to terms with the reality before they accept that yeah that wasn’t okay, it really happened, etc. I’m NOT saying it happened in this case or that it didn’t happen. Then it is also easy to think you know someone and that they wouldn’t do something, but your experiences with one person, might be completely different from another person. For instance, (completely different situation, but my point is the same), one guy saw his father as strict, but a very loving father who was a pillar of his community and he couldn’t imagine the man ever harming anyone or doing anything brutal or harmful. His sister on the other hand, had been subjected to years of incest, rape, molestation by that same father and so to one child he was a wonderful, upstanding man and father, to the other he was a monster in the dark who hurt and toyed with her in every way and damaged her. Even her own brother never saw that side of him and never knew it existed until it came to light and pictures and videos he took of the abuse, came out. Then he had to accept that his father had that horrible side to him. Even family doesn’t always know everything, so you can’t necessarily say you know someone and their character and that they would or wouldn’t do something for certain. If you want to be truly objective and fair, you can’t take a side on this one until or unless evidence presents itself. Such as other women that she claimed he would or has been or still is abusing and drugging, coming forward, or evidence in her own particular case or evidence against her claims. For now, all anyone who isn’t him or her can do is say he is that we don’t know if he did it or not because we weren’t there.
Now don’t get me wrong I gave up on Toby after I begin thinking of him as a sell out for doing that annoying orange show on CN, but everyone knows that Tumblr is used only to hurt, put-down, and frame others. (well that and one other thing…). Isn’t it odd that she just so happens to “find strength to speak up” after she realized he’s got money and is famous?
Toby, you should tell her to shut up.
If these allegations are really true then she should have reported the crime to the police, not make a tweet about it years later now that Toby is one of the most famous YouTubers! I find it hard to believe that it’s just coincidence that now that Toby is famous and doing well for himself and she saw a figurine of him for sale that all of a sudden she thinks that it’s a good idea now to accuse someone of rape on Twitter years after it allegedly happened with no evidence to back up her claims! Trivializing rape hurts real rape victims and not for using it as a tool for fucking up Toby’s livelihood because she’s jealous of his success now! Ladies if you have been raped then call the police and report it straight after it’s happened because then they can send you to a hospital for examination and collect evidence to use against your attacker! Rape is a crime and should be reported immediately and dealt with harshly but tweeting that someone raped you on Twitter because you appear jealous immediately destroys any credibility that your accusation might have had if it was reported at the time of the incident and backed up with actual evidence!!!
Uh yeah I agree.
Why do you need to tell everyone on the internet that your boyfriend raped you?
She should be mature enough not to have the whole world know because this is something that is for the police and your close family to know about, not your subscribers or followers.
Because she posted it online I don’t believe Toby raped her, nor do any of the other things she claimed.
It would in no way surprise me if Toby’s the one telling the truth. In all honesty, with the huge number of false rape and sexual assault reports spiking in the U.S., it would surprise me more if he’s the one lying. Obviously, not all rape reports and charges are false, and celebrities (term applied loosely) are by no means absolute saints with no crimes to their names. But the sheer number of rape allegations that have been proven false or redacted (an unfortunate number of the allegations against Bill Cosby, for example), especially against celebrities, has begun to break down the legitimacy that I can see in such claims. Some people think we should always trust the woman claiming she was raped, but quite frankly, I’m only starting to question the claims and doubt them more and more as stories like these come out and the majority are proven false or redacted. Personally, I don’t want to doubt women who claim they were raped; if my own daughter told me she was raped by her boyfriend, I would trust her, I would want to believe her.
So for fuck’s sake, can’t the women who make these false claims for fame or money just stop so we can trust the women who are actually raped?
wouldn’t be surprised if this was another false rape accusation
Lol at all these dumbass bitches defending toby ”cuz i em such huge fan of him!!!!”. No, of course you don’t think he would ever do something like that because you’re a shitty ass fanboy/girl. Grow the fuck up, you don’t want to admit that he’s a shitty ass rapist
If you actually read the other comments they have extremely good points, but what is your backup proof that he is?
I skim read her post and saw that most of it is just her having incredibly poor boundaries and him not actually doing anything wrong. Putting drugs in her vodka is lame if it’s true, but she doesn’t even remember doing anything other than cuddling and is just implying that he did anything else even though she said she was lying there awake cuddling, not just waking up the next morning with him gone like would probably happen if it were roofies. The guy doesn’t have to drug people to have sex, he is good looking, cute, has millions of adoring fans, etc. I’m nowhere near as attractive as him and I’ve never had any problems finding people to have a relationship or something casual if that’s what I wanted. She’s just being ridiculously whiny..
The burden of proof rests with the accuser. There is zero evidence against him. There are ample suspicious circumstances that point towards this claim being false. You don’t have to be a fanboy of Mr Turner to understand the basic legal tenet known as “due process.”
If someone comes forward as a victim of sexual assault, by all means comfort them and help them through their tough time without judgment or skepticism. But don’t go out and spread unsubstantiated allegations against someone who may themself be a victim of a false accusation.
Have any proof, where you there? Do you have video evidence to back up those claims? If not that he is not a rapist, people are not guilty until proven innocent, we live in a innocent until proven guilty society.
He would never do something like that! I know for a fact, that he’s always very devoted to his girlfriend, whenever he has one I mean. I agree that she just wants his money and his exposure. She’s just jealous because he’s even more popular now than before. He’s always been one of my favorite youtubers, so I know quite a bit about him and I know that he would never do that. I hope she doesn’t get away with this!
she wants his money!
pretty much, and his exposure
considering he has connections to big players like google and endemol and over 50 times more subscribers, it’s easy to see how she could profit from dragging herself into publicity by falsely accusing him of rape
let’s hope this doesn’t turn into another freeKesha debacle where everyone blindly believes her and starts accusing toby of being a rapist considering there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim (other than the fact that “they dated several years ago”)
It’s way too easy for women to false accuse in this country and not be held accounable for it. So because of that I assume any accusation by a woman is a lie until it’s proven otherwise. She made the accusation the burden is on her to prove it.
While I don’t believe this particular case and I do think this April chick (like plenty of other people) is just doing this for her own gain, I think it’s really shitty of you to “assume any accusation by a woman is a lie.” That is a REALLY asshole way to go about treating situations like this. There are plenty of false accusations, yes, but that is greatly in the minority. The majority of accusations are true, or at least the accuser wholeheartedly believes them to be true.
Rape is a difficult thing to provide solid evidence for unless it is reported and investigated IMMEDIATELY after the incident (and even then, half the cases aren’t investigated). It’s not like a traditional crime. You’ll rarely have physical evidence to prove it. In situations of rape and assault, in this case, you often have to judge the character and behavior of those who are involved and corroborate the stories of those who know them.
Now, I could understand if you remained dubious or skeptical about a claim of rape until further proof or evidence was provided (on either side), but outright saying “I just assume they’re lying about it” makes you seem like a real shithead. Try to consider the feelings of a person who has actually been raped and doesn’t have physical evidence for it. It’s a terrible feeling.
And by the way, both men AND women are raped.
I don’t think there’s anything “easy” about a woman, under her own name, publicly sharing a very personal account of rape and drug use, and publicly accusing a guy who is a youtube celebrity for playing videogames and who has millions of adoring fans (a large portion of which are teenaged boys) of rape.
Nobody does something like that idly, or on a whim. That kind of heat destroys people’s lives. It shows up when someone googles your name, forever. It keeps you from getting jobs. It brands you.
That’s the internet equivalent of coating your head in honey and shoving your entire head in a beehive and screaming “BEES ARE STUPID, PLEASE STING ME FOREVER”.
And here’s a serious question: what would she stand to gain? Because the only thing people can ever answer to that question, in cases like this, is some really nebulous word like “attention”, as if that’s some secret thing all women desperately want. The angry, negative attention of millions of teenaged boys who idol you just publicly accused of rape. Sure thing. Sign me up. Sounds like a blast.
More Sympathy = More Subscribers = More Partnerships = More Money. She is both boosting her own income and taking down a major competitor. It’s simple logic. If this was true she would have gone to the police 1st and not the internet. Not the other way around. Why hasn’t she gone to the police yet? Everyone knows now, so what’s stopping her? By the way, rape victims can get jobs just fine…Unless they get sued for libel defamation, because they lied about being raped. This is most likely why she won’t go to the police like a sane person would do.
“Millions of adoring fans of rape” Wow that’s a big accusation to make and proves that you don’t know jack, you want to say in her defense that it’s not easy going public and letting the world know what happened to her so here’s my retort, why didn’t she just go to the cops? That’s easier than going online and letting every random johnny know what happened to you, so why didn’t she? Why tell the internet, people who have a mob mentality that forget that you need to prove someone’s guilty before you try to sentence him who will harass and send death threats and try to mess with his life without knowing the facts and not tell the cops who will actually begin an investigation to see if he did rape her?
I’m no private eye buy if I got to take a guess it’s probably because she knows they will never find proof of the rape because it more than likely never happened. Toby is innocent until proven guilty, is he probably a douchebag behind the camera and treated her like shit, it’s possible, he’s a person and people are never saints but did he rape her? That however is something she needs to prove and not the internet but to the cops
Thank you.
yes, please consider for WHO it’s “heat”
not for the woman sharing the story under her own name
for the person she is accusing
she could stand to gain attention
that attention would bring viewers to her youtube account
those viewers would earn her more money
in addition it’s possible she is jealous of tobygames’ success and wants to hurt that and attempt to ruin his life because YES, being accused of rape, even when PROVEN FALSE can severely harm your career and life for the rest of your life
not accusing someone of rape. however, will hardly ever show up, see how much harrassment kesha is getting from falsely accusing dr luke? oh wait, that’s hardly happening, instead someone else is getting harrassed for even being involved with the guy.
Here here. Innocent until proven guilty. That being said he has a history for being a lecherous cheating bastard which has been confirmed by multiple sources. HOWEVER, using roofies and raping girls is a whole nother level above and beyond that. And such accusations need to be PROVEN BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT. with ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
Brie, you’re putting labels on things, without really thinking about it. The one who’s innocent until proven guilty is the one being accused.
And yet you’ve cleary decided, sans proof, that she’s guilty of lying and ask her to prove she’s innocent. something doesn’t quite add up there.
There’s more stuff to look at besides those two videos. Statements from 2 other women and friend (Max Landis) who was mentioned in the April’s post.
innocent until proven otherwise. thats how the law of this country works. the burden of proof falls on the one making the claim, and not going through the proper channels at the proper moment (making a post on the internet x years later vs going to the police the second after y happened) stinks of deceit.
being accused of rape is not evidence, not even by multiple women. if there are “plenty of cases” then there should be no difficulty in providing solid proof.
This is The Crucible all over again, here we have a witch hunt. Instead of hanging people, this sort of witch hunt hangs careers. People like April make me sick, she’s the reason why REAL victims of sexual abuse can’t speak up! Her little game against Toby is disgusting, her petty revenge is going to teach a 13 year old girl who had been sexually assaulted by someone she’s suppose to trust, or even a complete stranger that if she reports, everyone will assume she’s a fake. It’s people like April that put children in danger, that silence women. And for what? I hope April gets what’s coming to her.
…so you’re saying that because April spoke about being sexually assaulted, and because the general response was negative, it will discourage other women from speaking up? That’s ridiculous. A woman speaks up and because people disbelieve her, other women will be afraid to speak up? First of all, people have been disbelieving rape accusations since day 1, it isn’t a new thing. According to you, it’s not the fault of people who disbelieve her, but April’s fault for speaking in the first place. Just for a moment, imagine if April’s claims are true. How can anyone feel comfortable enough to speak about being raped when people like you call them sick and disgusting, and accuse them of ruining lives or careers?
This isn’t about whether she told the truth or not, this is about you being stupid. It’s the negative response to April’s story from people like you that’s going to discourage people from speaking about rape. I’m not saying that everyone should be in support of April and believe everything she posted, I’m saying that this is a topic where people need to be more careful about what they say, because as you implied, it will have an impact on other people in her situation. You are not omniscient and neither am I. We don’t know the truth. In this case, it’s potentially harmful to assume that we do.
Judging by everyone in the comment section below, we should try and solve rape cases by public opinion and not real police work.
Good job “no” too.
You basically told everyone this rape allegation is fake because it seems like tv and “because”.
And do we know how many people falsely accuse?
studies show numbers from 1.5- 10% of rape allegations turning up false.
So really, from every single woman that falsely reports rape, there are roughly 50-200 % more unreported cases of rape depending on the country. So make of that what you will, and I’m sure you will, you have to be right at the end of the day.
Not like it’s rape or anything you’re ranting about.
You need to stop assuming so much and let police do the work you seem to be blogging about.
Police work? What police work? She still hasn’t gone to them like a normal rape victim for some strange reason……….
I think you need to realize that the US justice system is heavily weighed in women’s favor when it comes to cases like this. One man was accused and convicted of rape dispite the rape kit coming back negative. So why now does she and everyone else step forward? I will bet my left kidney that this is like the Cosby allegations because now the is quite internet famous and wealthy.
There are some pretty messed up stuff on the internet, like that one time Markiplier got hacked for fun, multiple fake deaths for basically every love hated Youtube stars and pop singers including Pewdiepie (I know he’s really annoying). Its the internet, the least we can all do is heal the wounds that are ripped open in our small vulnerable world.
Even though 4 or 5 other women have pretty much come out and said that he’s universally shitty towards women? And other people who are MALES have come out being able to attest to his behavior poor?
Get the movie and TV show definitions of “rape” out of your head. He may not have physically pinned her down while she was pleading and fighting and scratching back saying “NO”, but it’s obvious he has a history of fucking women’s heads (possibly not entirely due to his own fault, it seems like he suffers from bi-polar disorder and ADHD amongst other things, while surrounding himself with yes men who put him on a pedestal) and broke her down mentally and emotionally to the point where she was constantly making excuses for his behavior.
And most importantly, look in the mirror friend. YOU telling a young woman who, while we’ll never ever truly know what happened in those very specific moments, is VERY CLEARLY EMOTIONALLY DISTRAUGHT WOMAN BECAUSE OF THIS MAN’S ACTIONS telling her that PEOPLE LIKE HER are going to “GET WHAT’S COMING TO HER” is what’s going to stop victims from coming forward.
Literally the only reason why she is the reason why victims are going to stop coming forward is because she pulled off this stunt that is clearly staged. Take a chill pill, caps aren’t going to solve your world problems. If women (and men) continuously abuse the internet like that, by crying wolf, obviously there is going to be backlash and it will strengthen the stereotype that victims are more likely to be liars. If they feel like they aren’t going to be taken seriously because society began to believe that the majority of victims are liars, they’re not going to speak up. If anything, speaking against false accusers, calling out bullshit isn’t going to drive them away, but maybe even be encouraged to speak up, because they know what bullshit looks like. I honestly am not going to fall for her bullshit. All she had were words, and staged text messages. Worst of all, she goes to tumblr before she goes to the police. Who in their right mind can expect to be taken seriously when they make themselves sound like they’re crying wolf. And on tumblr of all places. Have you been on tumblr? Tumblr is a laughing stock, tumblr has feminists that got the meaning of feminism wrong!
Do you have any clue how many women have done this? Turned to social media and cried wolf, all for attention, all for revenge, ruining lives. Do you? How do you know if she hasn’t gathered others to say things against Toby as a way to make it sound more believable because she knows she has nothing else? Read the other post about how 3 women said they were not raped or drugged, I don’t need to make a point on that.
And who said anything about movie definitions of rape? Did you not even read her post? You know, the part where Toby apparently ripped her clothes? She also claimed to say no at one point, so, that argument of yours is pretty much pointless.
Wasn’t her entire post pratically a rip off of one of netflix’s shows? And I’m the one who needs to get the t.v. definition of rape out of my head?
Get your head out of your ass before you hurt yourself with those caps. While there is a chance Toby could be guilty, there is also a chance that she could be lying. She screwed herself by turning to social media first. Sure, people make mistakes, but there are so many flaws with her accusations. At least Toby didn’t try to extend his video to a story of how he didn’t do anything.
3 women have said he has not raped, abused or drugged them. 2 of those 3 women say they do not believe he is that type of person but do not know what happened with other women. 1 woman didn’t say she was raped. Only one is saying she was. They all agree, and many others, agree he is shitty towards women when it comes to relationships. Others say he has problems with himself and drugs. I believe that saying they are ALL coming out and saying he is a rapist isn’t accurate.
As for the men and other women, I do not know if what they are saying is true. I don’t know if one or more women were raped. Like the women who don’t believe he is that type of person have said, this is a scary situation. He maybe be guilty. He maybe innocent but the allegations may considered truth. It is already ruining his career.
Hi. Just stopping by to say that posts on the internet via Tumblr and the like are not evidence. I believe people are innocent until proven guilty. Until there is real, solid evidence backing up all of these allegations and claims, no one should be making judgments on any of the people involved in this situation, namely Tobuscus and April. And If April does have evidence… well gee she’s sure taking her time to report it to the police.