Rising Hope coach Vladislav “Simons” Mineev is being accused by former head coach Jehiel “Pizzafps” Ardiente of sexually harassing the team and indecent exposure.
Pizzafps posted a TwitLonger late last night, including a timeline of events which eventually led to the unanimous decision of her and the rest of the all-female VALORANT team to leave Rising Hope.
According to her, Simons would tell other members to “show me your dick,” which made Pizzafps and the rest of the team uncomfortable. “I found it inappropriate so I called him out telling him that it wasn’t a good joke and that he should refrain from doing that as it was not funny,” she said.
After the incident, the stack decided to hold their training and scrims for Game Changers APAC Elite without Simons and another coach she referred to as Wway. Pizzafps said that Simons' unacceptable behavior worsened, and even showed his penis on a Discord call to the entire team. After further review, it was revealed that Simons was visibly drinking alcohol and acting inappropriately while he was watching the team's scrims.
Pizzafps brought the issue to Rising Hope co-owner Lazar, and discussed kicking Simons off of the org.”We told Lazar that if he didn’t take out Simons, we would be the ones to leave the org. Initially, Lazar wanted to keep Simons in the org with the reason that he ‘is a big star', but he agreed with the team's sentiments about Simons' behavior, and told us that he will not be joining the team as coach moving forward,” she said. Despite this, Simons is still listed as Rising Hope's coach.
“I got traumatized with what happened. The shock my players went through is resounding, causing me sleepless nights,” said Pizzafps. “We just hope that these types of predators would be barred from the scene as this is what is destroying the community and giving the game industry a bad image.”
Rising Hope has since announced the departure of the squad, even stating that Simons will remain as a member of the org.
Today we say goodbye to our VALORANT line-up. They have done a great job and we thank them for their time.
Simons and mdvjk remain in the organisation and will take part in the formation of the new line-up. pic.twitter.com/uvqvDPpSZO— Rising Hope (@RHopeAgency) October 5, 2022
Public feedback towards this was sour, calling it a “massive L.”
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