A former NFL player is accusing the CEO of Everyrealm, a company rooted in the Metaverse, of multiple toxic workplace issues, from racist comments to making sexual advances. Teyo Johnson, a former tight end for the Oakland Raiders who played at Stanford, launched a lawsuit against Everyrealm CEO Janine Yorio.
Did CEO Janine Yorio Try To Pimp Former NFL Employee?
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, is against Yorio and Everyrealm, and the allegations against her are explosive. Johnson purports that in March, during a company-related trip to the South by Southwest (SXSW) tech event in Austin, Texas, Yorio alerted him to a “sex-related game that she encouraged employees to play.” She introduced him to the term “KYP,” or “know your personnel,” and “KYC,” aka “know your client,” which he learned through Yorio were “euphemisms for having sex or hooking up with co-workers and business partners,” per reports on the lawsuit.
Ex-NFL star claims in lawsuit that “racist” CEO urged him to sleep with co-workers
Teyo Johnson is suing Everyrealm and its CEO, Janine Yorio, for overseeing a toxic workplace where she made lewd remarks about employees’ sex lives and racial slurs directed at Black employees. pic.twitter.com/abWnXSHved
— A Time For Change (@atime_forchange) January 4, 2023
Yorio told Johnson that “the way to pay the game” was to “get laid by a co-worker on a business trip,” the lawsuit alleges. She then allegedly asked him if “he would be doing any KYP.” Johnson, who says he was “taken aback” by Yorio’s assertion, “politely informed her that he was ‘already really close with someone,’ meaning he had a girlfriend,” the lawsuit states.
But later in the evening, that same day, Johnson alleged Yorio came to his hotel room in Austin and “insinuated in no uncertain terms that she believed he would” cheat on his girlfriend. She wanted him “to participate in the company’s KYP game,” reports on the lawsuit continue. Additionally, Johnson said that Yorio called him a “stupid black person” and “the whitest black person.”
What Racist Things Did Everyrealm CEO Janine Yorio Say To Tekyo Johnson?
Johnson claims she went further, hurling more insults at him like “d-ck,” “big swinging d-ck,” and “f–king d-ck,” and even his girlfriend was a target. Johnson claims Yorio made lewd jokes about his girlfriend’s menstrual cycle and alleged that he felt pressure to play “sexually harassing games” where his co-workers and even clients were urged to sleep with each other.
“The metaverse is only about video gaming,” @everyrealm CEO @janineyorio argues during #CoinDeskIDEAS.
"Don’t avoid it, embrace it.”
Plus, she explains how the next generation of consumers are in video game worlds: https://t.co/jJjKms5zsJ pic.twitter.com/2uZRYvDvI0
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) October 18, 2022
Who Is Janine Yorio?
Yorio is the CEO of Everyrealm, a “metaverse technology company that brings life to the metaverse,” according to the company website.
The organization claims to “invest in, incubate and develop businesses that are related to virtual worlds in video game environments.”
The world is moving to a more immersive experience where the convergence of virtual reality meets the real world. The Metaverse is perceived as the future way the world will do business, and many celebrities like Snoop Dogg and more have established their branded presence within the new universe.
Everyrealm is apparently a big fish in the Metaverse pond, whose pool of “businesses include community-driven projects such as The Row, Fantasy Islands, Narcos: Metaverse, and Hometopia. The company also has an esports guild and tournament platform called operates Bedlam, which “manages an investment portfolio that includes holdings in 30+ platforms and more than 4,000 in-game assets.”
Now all eyes are on Yorio and her company, which has significant investors from the tech world and celebrity endorsements from stars like Will Smith and The Weeknd. With other lawsuits also lobbed at Yorio from another former Black male employee alleging similar issues, Yorio is in a contemptuous space in the evolving world of the Metaverse.
