Kai Cenat, a Twitch streamer, started his rise in popularity in 2018 when he started uploading pranks and skit videos on his YouTube channel. Before garnering enough attention to start streaming on Twitch, he periodically streamed himself playing video games and talking with his audience and discussing his life or what’s going on in the world. Cenat periodically had guests appear such as Drake, Ice Spice, Lil Baby, and Lil Uzi Vert, and because of these feats, Kai Cenat won “Streamer of the Year” last year during the 12th annual Streamy Awards.
The reason for this riot even happening was because of Kai Cenat and his public giveaway at Union Square, where he was giving away valuable items such as PS5s, computers, microphones, keyboards, headsets, webcams, gaming chairs, and gift cards as a way to give back to the community he grew up in.
The giveaway event itself was supposed to start at 4 p.m. on August 4th, 2023 according to the New York City Police Department, but even before that time, there were an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people in attendance. Due to the number of people in attendance, there wasn’t a way for Kai Cenat to communicate with everyone at the event, causing confusion on whether the giveaway was genuine or just a publicity stunt. Which in turn, caused people to throw garbage, tear down barricades, block traffic, and cause general mayhem in the streets such as climbing on cars and beating them with whatever objects that could be found, a news helicopter even captured footage of a man using a fire extinguisher on a crowd of people.
After the NYPD got everything under control, sixty-five people were arrested, thirty of them being juveniles, and several people were injured, including one teen whose face was slammed into the back of a cab by police before being put on the ground and arrested. There were reportedly three similar incidents, which are all being investigated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Kai Cenat was arrested after trying to escape from the chaos in a black SUV. He was, however, charged with first-degree rioting, inciting a riot, and unlawful assembly and is expected to appear in court following those charges on the 16th of August and then set to reappear in court on the 18th.
After a couple days of being released, Kai Cenat started a stream titled “First stream after New York”, addressing the entire situation and stating that the entire riot “wasn’t his intention”, and that he just wanted to give back to the city he grew up in. “Being from New York, it has been my dream to wanna give back to the community that made me who I am.” He stated in his live stream. Kai Cenat also said, “[And] I want people to know that none of that was my intention, I had good intentions for this whole thing, I don’t condone any of the things that went on.” Kai Cenat’s PR team, AMP Group, also apologized: “We are deeply disheartened by the outbreak of disorderly conduct that affected innocent people and businesses, and do not condone that behavior.” It should be noted that AMP Group did not address any of the charges Kai Cenat is facing and has not commented any further on the entire situation.
As of right now, neither Kai Cenat AMP Group, nor the NYPD have released further comments on the entire situation and any further developments will more than likely come from Kai Cenat’s court hearing on August 18th.