Top Chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura has denied Andrea Botez’s claims that he sent her a cease and desist following a cardboard cutout of him appearing in her stream.
Hikaru, a Chess grandmaster and the category’s biggest streamer on Twitch before his move over to rival platform Kick, has never been one to shy away from or hide his feuds with others, and the Botez sisters, Andrea and Alexandra, know that all too well.
In 2021, he criticized Andrea for jokes she made at the Chess World Championship, and Alex has claimed that he has been frustrated with the sisters for streaming chess in the ‘Just Chatting’ category, dating all the way back to 2020.
Earlier in 2023, he claimed that the pair would “never win anything in Chess,” something they didn’t take kindly to and put him on blast for, but it has been somewhat quiet on the Botez vs Hikaru front since.
Hikaru cease & desist Andrea Botez?
While talking with fellow Chess streamer AnnaCramling, Andrea suggested that her feud with Hikaru may have finally come to a head as he sent her a cease and desist notice.
“The cutout is done and we shall never speak about who once was here,” Andrea said in response to Anna’s questioning of the cutout.
She continued: “I’ll tell you half of it… I’ll tell you as much as I’m allowed. All I can say is, Anna, we got a cease and desist. That’s all that will be said.”
Hikaru Cease & Desisted Andrea for having a cardboard cutout of him on stream pic.twitter.com/dqjEjisW0b
— Twitch Clips (@ClippedTwitch) August 21, 2023
While she didn’t spell it out specifically, Andrea implied that Hikaru sent her a cease & desist after a cutout of him started appearing in the background of her streams.
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Hikaru responds to cease & desist accusation
Several hours later, Hikaru discussed the allegations on stream, denying the fact that he sent a cease and desist notice to the Botez sister.
“I mean, yeah, it’s just absolutely absurd,” he said, saying that she must have thought it was funny after seeing other situations, such as the possibility of Logan Paul sending Dillon Danis a cease and desist. “I literally didn’t even talk to them. That’s how ridiculous it is. I haven’t even spoken to them. I’ve been dealing with other legal stuff.”
Andrea apologizes to Hikaru
He then showed a Direct Message sent to him by Andrea, in which she claimed she didn’t know what a cease and desist is, apologizing for making the implication.
“Hi Hikaru, I just saw that there was a clip on LSF about the cardboard cutout – I genuinely apologize, I was being, sarcastic / joking, around and thought a cease & desist is just a term meaning being asked to take something down – I’m going to clear it up first thing in the morning on stream and it’s completely my bad. I’m sorry again and I know LSF is full of haters, I will be more cautious in the future and will try to avoid putting you in such situations.”
It appears as though Andrea may have stumbled on what she was saying a little when discussing the Hikaru situation with Anna, and promptly reached out to him to both apologize and confirm that she will rectify the situation live on stream.
Andrea claims Hikaru had someone to take down the cutout
After Hikaru responded to Andrea’s claims, the Botez sisters jointly claimed that Hikaru did indeed reach out to them but not directly. Rather, Hikaru allegedly had someone from chess.com, a site they both work for, contact her to take down the cutout.
“Well if he [showed] the DMs and cared about the truth, then he shouldn’t have said he didn’t reach out to us ’cause that’s sneaky. He didn’t reach out directly but he had someone reach out to us for him. So if he cares about the truth he should be fair about it.”