Over the past week, we have seen numerous popular figureheads in the Smash Bros. community being accused of heinous crimes such as sexual harassment and pedophilia, with even more similar accusations coming about by the day. Earlier this week, however, a new allegation came to light and became the newest hot topic on social media.
Greg “Sky” Williams, a well-known and once-beloved Smash content creator, has been accused of terrible living experiences at the properties he managed, resulting in fraud. In addition, he has also been accused of owing several friends and members in the community a large abundance of money that was loaned to him due to reasons that ended up not being true.
The truth about Zero, Katie, and Skyhttps://t.co/lL9SluWR0X
— Jisu (@JisuArtist) July 5, 2020
Williams is known for housing prominent Smash players along with others at his “Sky Houses” in Southern California, which went on from 2014 to now. The accusations began after a former resident, Jacqueline “Jisu” Choe, wrote about her experiences inside the house she lived in and her interactions with Williams.
“Have you ever talked to someone where every single thing they say doesn’t seem to make sense, and yet they’re so adamant you might start to believe them,” Choe rhetorically asked. She added:
“To be honest, I don’t know why I didn’t come forward about this sooner; maybe it’s his large following, maybe it’s just because he physically towers over me, or threatened to ‘beat me’ several times at the house — I don’t know. Even as ‘jokes,’ I slowly grew to learn over the years that he is so full of shit and insane that I can’t trust him.”
Choe also went into more detail about how Williams would harass her to make commissions for him and that the one time she did, she wasn’t paid for her work.
My experience as a roommate in the Sky house
Read: https://t.co/d0SK84WlH0
— Amphy
(@AmphyPop) July 9, 2020
Another artist, known as “JollyOxen” on Twitter, was specifically hired by Williams to move to one of the houses to work on video editing for him. According to JollyOxen’s fiance “Amphy”, things started out well until they got on Williams’s bad side. Sky told the tenants that they had to find a new location due to being evicted from the house they were currently at, leading to approximately ten people sharing a hotel room together until Williams found a new place in Hacienda, which specifically was know as the “Sky Mansion.”
After being promised the maid quarters of the mansion, the couple was instead forced to live in the garage with two other roommates, which they were told was insulated (it wasn’t), which caused them to suffer through heatwaves with no air conditioning. Another roommate was later added to their room along with a different tenant residing in the house storing extra belongings in their room. There was even a house cat that would leave rat heads in the garage. Amphy also explains how they were called derogatory terms like “garbage rats” and “slaves,” not being paid for work, but given an allowance of $100 a week, as well as being forced to share a single bagel with other people after giving Williams money to get them something to eat during food runs.
some notes on how the sky williams house worked https://t.co/i2lpmi0L4c
— ffSade (@ffSade) July 6, 2020
Melissa “ffSade” Yabumoto, who lived there at the same time, detailed how the house was structured like a pyramid with Sky naturally on top. Depending on the relationship one had with a roommate would determine how much rent they would pay, which could always change. Sade explained, “If Sky or a ‘higher tier resident’ did not like you, then chances were that you had to pay an additional fee. Furthermore, romantic couples were given a fee in the form of a ‘couples tax’.” He would allegedly use animals as nicknames for roommates including “Monkey” and “Gorilla,” plus the usage of racial-related nicknames as well. Williams apparently had money issues, but whenever he had it, he would waste it either on luxury items or through gambling in Las Vegas.
An incident that was mentioned by many former roommates in the past week involved Sky threatening the entire house that he would break their valuables unless they gave him $350 after a guest visited without his knowledge. Other allegations given to Williams included poor treatment of women at the mansion and minors who were offered alcohol with his knowledge or at the very least, his complicity.
Sky owes me 55,000 dollars
Read: https://t.co/aDMcghZIxs
— Samuelson (@iamaSamuelson) July 8, 2020
Following the revelation of these experiences, a current tenant of the house named Samuelson went to Twitter and explained how Williams owed him $55,000. This incident caused numerous people to come forward and do the same, leading to an approximate sum of nearly $360,000. “Sky and I go way back to the Brawl days, I’ve known him since 2008,” said Samuelson. He explained further in his statement:
“I left the Smash scene and didn’t talk to him very much at all after my departure, but I still had fond memories of him going to Smash tournaments together and whatnot. We barely talked up until 2017 which is when he messaged me out of the blue saying he’s in serious debt to the IRS. He told me he would go to prison and his career would be over unless he received a significant amount of money. After several back and forth messages, I eventually agreed to lend him 55,000 dollars.”
Back in 2017, Sky posted a video on his YouTube channel explaining his massive debt to the IRS, which was the same year that he leased out the Sky Mansion.
Jesus Christ how much fucking debt does Sky Williams have at this point I’ve seen 4+ people say Sky owes them over 10k
— h (@on11Lum) July 8, 2020
Samuelson explained the deal they made where Williams would pay him back a thousand dollars a month for ninety days after giving out the loan. Instead of using the money towards his debt, Sky used it to lease the now “Sky Mansion.” Before learning the truth, Williams told Samuelson that he didn’t use the money as planned because his dad had cancer, which he could relate to with his own mother previously having the illness. Sam later found out that his dad never had cancer, with Sky’s excuse being that his own dad lied to him about it and used the money to get cosmetic surgery on his penis. In his statement, Samuelson also added that he backs everything that Yabumoto “ffSade” said regarding the social structure of the house and that Williams hasn’t paid him back any of the money that he owes him.
The Sky House. My Statement.
— ♡♪!? (@SkyWilliams) July 7, 2020
After the toppling of accusations, Sky decided to make a statement through a livestream on his Twitch channel. The stream ran for a little over two hours where Williams primarily focused on the allegations made by Choe and Yabumoto, which began with him taking ownership of everything that has taken place inside the house, whether he was ignorant about it or not. As the stream continued, Williams began to go off-topic, talking about other victims’ experiences without their consent and tried to shift himself as a victim, progressing him to eventually break down partway through. It wasn’t until Samuelson unplugged the router in their house where the stream ended.
The live stream statement was a massive mistake. I elected to not listen to any comments to not get distracted and I ended up hurting even more people than I already have with my actions for the past 7 years. I did it live because I felt it was the only non edited way to do this.
— ♡♪!? (@SkyWilliams) July 8, 2020
Following the stream, Williams made a lengthy Twitter thread apologizing for the stream and explained what his current actions will be moving forward, which involves working to clear all his debt and making a Google doc with all the facts. “…this isn’t a document about defending me, it’s about the raw truth – and making sure that everything I’m saying is just the facts of the matter takes a LOT of time, but I’m getting it done,” Williams explained. He finished his statement by saying “never in my life would I want to hurt this many people and I’m more sorry than words can express, so I just hope my actions of contrition to follow convey how much I want to truly make things right for all involved.”
As of now, Williams has yet to post the document he has said to be working on or any update regarding the clearance of his debt.
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