YouTuber Dawson Gurley has become known for his Klay Thompson impersonation, which he’s been doing for at least seven years. He started gaining traction in 2017 with an NBA Finals prank video. But since Tuesday the antics have ended, because “Fake Klay” has been banned from the Chase Center for life.
A day after Gurley claimed he’d been banned, Golden State officially confirmed the ban was real.
“An individual falsely posed as a Warriors player to intentionally gain access to unauthorized areas at the Chase Center,” a Warriors spokesman told SFGATE. “These actions have resulted in a lifetime ban from both the Chase Center and Kaiser Permanente Arena.”
Nor will Gurley be welcomed at Kaiser Permanente Arena, home of the Warriors’ G League team in Santa Cruz.
In many videos on his social media accounts, Gurley shows him walking around town making people believe he really is the superstar of the Golden State. He signs autographs, takes photos with unsuspecting fans, and occasionally shows off his skills by playing one-on-one with random people. The YouTuber even shared clips of him tricking staff at the Warriors’ home arena.
But the Warriors drew a line with Gurley’s antics after he walked past five layers of security, made it to the court and shot around for about 10 minutes before Game 5 of the NBA Finals series against the Boston Celtics.
Gurley started tweeting about the incident at 4:17 p.m. PT, about two hours before the peak. He told his supporters that he was in attendance but had just been banned from home games. About an hour later, the YouTuber shared an official letter signed by Brian J. Herbert, vice president of security for the Golden State Warriors.
He claimed he spent $10,000 on tickets that he says the organization will not refund.
The letter, which Gurley shows, explains that actions “may be considered an act of criminal trespassing,” to which he replied that technically that’s not true because he spoke to security and went through metal detectors. He also shared a screenshot the definition of trespassing to try to help his argument.
Several fans met him before Game 5 starts, and there’s also video of the shootaround session that supposedly got him in trouble.
It doesn’t sound like Fake Klay had a good night, but the real Klay Thompson scored 21 points on 50% shooting from the field and helped his team win 104-94. Golden State now leads the series 3-2.
Gurley has already posted a new YouTube video (below) showing how it all went down.