IShowSpeed ‘still playing’ charity match subject to medical checks, Sidemen member confirms

Sidemen member Simon “Miniminter” Minter has confirmed popular YouTube streamer IShowSpeed (real name Darren Watkins Jr.) will play next month’s charity match at the London Stadium – provided he faces no medical issues which prevent him from playing.

Fears were mounting that Speed would be forced to pull out of the fundraiser as the streamer – who has more than 19 million subscribers on YouTube – continues to recover from a sinus infection from which he said he “almost died” and caused a “deadly headache”.

The 18-year-old ended up in hospital over the health scare, with fans showing up outside the building in Tokyo to show their support.

In a stream on Tuesday, Watkins said of the crisis: “I literally had the worst-ever sinus infection. It got super, super bad, and the sinus infection was causing cluster headaches.

“I pray none of y’all in the chat experience a cluster headache … That’s the one that almost killed me - that’s the one that almost got me.

“I went through so much. I’m still healing.”

He also added that his doctors “are telling me a whole different story right now” as to whether he’ll be well enough to join the kickabout.

And in this very same week, Speed avoided a ban from YouTube after accidentally exposing his penis to fans while streaming him playing hit video game Five Nights at Freddy’s.

“Oh my God,” he said, before immediately shutting the stream down.

The incident, combined with his recent health issues, led to concerns over whether his appearance at the charity match would still happen - and these only went into overdrive when fans spotted the Sidemen had deleted their tweet announcing Speed would be on the pitch:

Thankfully, Minter was on hand to reassure fans and ticketholders, telling his audience on Twitch that Speed is still playing on 9 September “as long as he’s OK with the medical stuff he had before”.

“The reason [the tweet] got deleted is because there was some question on whether he’d be able to fly, but yeah, he is [playing],” he added.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.