Faze Banks Barley House Bar Brawl

Overview

Faze Banks Bar Brawl refers to a violent altercation in which YouTubers Ricky "Faze" Banks and Alissa Violet clashed with staff at the Barley House bar in Cleveland, Ohio. After the incident, Banks and Violet accused the bar staff of physically and sexually assaulting them prior to the bar refuting their claims with security camera footage.

Background

On November 26th, 2017, Banks tweeted "Some guy just hit Alissa. Watch my Snapchat, please help. Shortly after, Banks tweeted a Snapchat video in which he points at the Barley House bar and claims he was "choked" and that some "guy tried to grab my girlfriend's ass" (shown below).

Developments

Barley House's Video Response

On November 29th, the Barley House YouTube channel released security camera footage showing Banks initiating the assault against the Barley House security guard and both Banks and Alissa Violet seemingly escalating the altercation outside of the bar (shown below). Within 48 hours, the video gathered more than 642,000 views. Additionally, the video showed multiple threats sent to staff of the bar from Banks' fans.

Faze Banks Response

On November 29th, 2017, Banks uploaded a video titled "The Worst Night of Our Lives" (shown below). In the video, Banks gave his side of the story and told his viewers not to send threats to the Barley House. Within 48 hours, the video garnered upwards of 3.5 million views and comments were disabled.

“This is when Richie (the bouncer in the restricted area) moves toward me, gets more aggressive and then ultimately grabs me and tries to shove me. In the security footage, you will see I take the first step back and I am shoved first, 100 percent. Don’t fucking touch me. He had no reason to do that. It was completely uncalled for. He pushes me, I push him back, we get into a scuffle. He ultimately gets me into a headlock and then I feel three other guys drag me up the stairs and I’m being dragged by my neck.”

Online Reaction

The Barley House response video subsequently reached the front page of various subreddits, including /r/JusticeServed,^[1] /r/PublicFreakout,^[2] /r/quityourbullshit^[3] and /r/trashy,^[4] with many accusing Banks and Violet of making false claims against the Barley House staff. Meanwhile, the DramaAlert YouTube channel released a video about the security camera footage, which accumulated more than 1.7 million views and 28,900 comments over the next several days (shown below, left). On November 30th, 2017, YouTuber "Philip DeFranco": uploaded a video discussing the incident, which gathered upwards of 868,000 views and 14,000 comments over the next 24 hours (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References