Lionel Messi made a surprise appearance on a Twitch stream during his attendance at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris on Monday evening and immediately called out the show’s host for sharing the content of text messages between the pair. The Inter Miami star was in the French capital to collect his record eighth Ballon d’Or gong, which is awarded annually in a vote that declares the best footballer in the world.
During the evening, the 36-year-old broke with convention to appear on a live Twitch stream hosted by Spanish social media star Ibai Llanos. But during the online conversation a suited and booted Messi took the opportunity to call out Llanos for a previous indiscretion.
Speaking in Spanish with a smirk on his face, Messi is quoted to have said: “I’m not going to answer you anymore because you make everything public and I don’t like it. The Ballon d’Or? Now you are changing the topic you son of a b*tch.”
After the lively exchange continued in their native tongue, Llanos quickly posted a clip of the flashpoint on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption: “The moment when he calls me a son of a b*tch and then we start talking as if it were a serious interview, what was it?”
Messi was reportedly annoyed with Llanos after he had shared some content of private text messages between the pair on a previous live Twitch stream.
Llanos is a well-known influencer in Spain and can boast of almost 10 million followers on Instagram alone. The 28-year-old stars in and produces a wide variety of content with his main focus being on League of Legends coverage as well as other sports and more general content.
With a reach that includes over 15million subscribers on Twitch, he has built connections with plenty of famous names including Messi himself.
Their live Twitch interview began with Llanos congratulating Messi on his latest achievement but the conversation soon changed to the Argentina captain calling out his host.
Messi said: “Now I won’t reply to you anymore because you make everything public…You have no privacy. I replied to you with good vibes and you aired out everything.”
A slightly rattled Llanos quickly replied by insisting that he had since “erased” the content in question and reassured him that everything was “pixelated”. But Messi jokingly came back again, saying: “Next time I won’t reply to you. I’ll leave you to read next time.”
Whether Messi will appear on another of Lanos’ well-viewed streams going forward remains to be seen.