Who is Chris Niosi and what did he do? Allegations controversy explored as Honkai: Star Rail post sparks backlash online

American voice actor and animator Chris Niosi also known as Kirbopher has been announced as the English voice actor in Honkai: Star Rail, a China-based role-playing video game. The game’s official X account said Niosi will voice the character Moze in its English translation.

However, following the announcement on July 18, several netizens brought up past abuse allegations against the voice actor, which initially emerged in 2019.

In late July of that year, one of Niosi’s ex-girlfriends accused him of emotionally and s*xually manipulative and abusive behavior. After the girlfriend came forward with the claims in a blog post, several other former partners of the voice actor as well as colleagues, accused him of similar mistreatment and abuse.

After the allegations surfaced in 2019, Nintendo removed Niosi from the Fire Emblem game series where he voiced the protagonist Byleth. After Honkai revealed Niosi as the English voice actor for one of the characters, netizens were upset and enraged. They disapproved of his casting in the game and criticized the game's publisher HoYoverse for choosing Niosi without considering his history or background.

"Casting chris niosi is just the cherry on hoyoverses problem cake right now what the f**k were u thinking", wrote one person.

"Chris Niosi admitted to emotionally and s*xually abusing his colleagues family and partners in 20 f**king 19...Goddamn Nintendo replaced his role in a game like weeks before it was set to release...Casting him in something now is f**king embarrassing", commented another.

One person said regardless of Niosi's attempt to be a better person by seeking therapy, he should not pursue his voice acting career anymore.

"this is just male trailblazer with a hood. also i dont give a f**k how much therapy chris niosi went to in order to get better - it's not fair to his victims to hear their abuser's voice in stuff. this b*tch should stay out of the VA career period", another user voiced.

"It’s deeply unfortunate @honkaistarrail has made the decision to cast Chris Niosi despite his previous, lengthy allegations of severe abuse which was s*xual, emotional, etc...If he’s actually a better person then I look forward to it. However, his track record is bad", said another.

Another person referred to a separate voice actor Vic Mignogna who faced similar accusations and was blacklisted, demanding the same to be done with Niosi.

"the fact that chris niosi continues to get work to this day is despicable...a similar thing happened with vic mignogna and HE got blacklisted!! why not this guy?! and on top of that all the voice actors i like seem to just ignore this!!", noted one X user.

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Chris Niosi's abuse controversy and his apology

Niosi’s ex-girlfriend, who blasted him in 2019, posted on Tumblr under the name Amy, claiming:

"Chris Niosi is abusive and people need to know the truth about him."

Amy said Niosi physically manhandled her in front of her friends and planned on taking s*xual advantage of her when she was heavily intoxicated.

Following Amy’s post, Niosi’s former partners, coworkers, and friends alleged they witnessed a pattern of abusive behavior from him. Addressing the accusations, Niosi wrote on his own Tumblr blog post:

"I am 30 years old and for about half of my lifetime, I have horribly mistreated and abused friends, colleagues, and even my significant others. It is time that I addressed each and every one of those people and responded to their feelings with individual apologies for what I’ve done to hurt them."

Chris Niosi's apology post from 2019. (Image via X/ @tnbhoods)

Chris Niosi added:

"I’m not looking for forgiveness. I only hope I am finally taking the first true step to being a better person and I will do my best to never let anyone else down, or hurt anyone else I care about ever again."

However, several people claimed Niosi never directly addressed the s*xual coercion allegations, nor did he separately apologize for it to the supposed victims.

After Niosi issued his statement, Amy detailed the instance she mentioned in her original post. She claimed to have made it clear to the voice actor that she would not sleep with him in a drunken state, but Niosi tried to do so regardless. She continued:

“Not to mention you completely glossed over the part about how you kept me hostage in your car in front of my office building. Out of everything that was honestly the most horrifying thing you did to me. You forced me to do something I didn’t want to do.”

Niosi’s ex-girlfriend added:

“I was too afraid to leave the car and go back to work because I thought you would follow me out and scream at me the whole way for all my coworkers to see. You took advantage of me in a place that I had but no choice to give you what you want. Do you not understand how f***ing wrong that is? Why didn’t you talk about this in your “apology”?"

Honkai: Star Rail has not yet addressed the backlash from netizens over Chris Niosi's casting in the game.