The mother of a UK teenager who won more than $1m (£818,000) at the recent Fortnite World Cup finals has revealed she once threw away his Xbox console in an attempt to get him to focus on his schoolwork.
Lisa Dallman was in New York over the weekend to watch her 15-year-old son Jaden Ashman place second in the Duos event, earning him half of the $2.25m (£1.84m) prize money.
“I don’t really know much about video games,” she said in an interview with the BBC after the tournament.
“It’s not been a straight forward journey with Jaden. If I’m honest with you I’ve been quite against him gaming. I’ve been more pushing him to do his schoolwork. I’ve actually thrown an Xbox out, snapped a headset, we’ve had a nightmare.”
Jaden was not well known in the professional gaming world before he qualified for the finals, having not won any prize money in eSports until earlier this year.
He made it to the final by qualifying ahead of 40 million other Fortnite players, in what the event’s organisers described as “the most participated-in tournament of all time”.
But Ms Dallman revealed her son almost did not make it to the tournament at all after there were issues with his visa.
“We had a week of a nightmare,” she said. “The dog ate his birth certificate, and this is not a joke, this actually really did happen.”
When asked what she thought he would spend the money on, Ms Dallman said he would struggle to find things to buy as he is “not really a materialistic person”.
In a separate interview, Jaden revealed that he planned to spend his winnings on a new house, a new car and a pair of Gucci shoes.
