H1ghSky1 – Professional Fortnite Gamer & Member of the Faze Clan

H1ghSky1 is the online gametag of American professional gamer Patrick Bragaru who has garnered fame for playing ‘Fortnite’, a first-person shooter battle royale game developed by Epic Games. In March 2019, when he was 13 years old, he became the youngest recruit of the e-sports and entertainment group ‘FaZe Clan’. He used to be a very popular streamer on Twitch and had over three hundred thousand followers on it at one point. However, he has since been banned from the platform for being a minor. H1ghSk1 currently has a very active YouTube channel with over a million subscribers and about 80 million total views. He also posts regular updates on his Twitter and Instagram pages.

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Discrepancies about H1ghSky1’s Birth

According to some websites, H1ghSky1, whose real name is Patrick Bragaru, was born on July 1, 2007, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. However, this is disputed. On March 22, 2020, in a YouTube video shared on the ‘FaZe Clan’ channel, Patrick implied that he was 10 years old in January 2017. That means he was either born in January 2007 or at some point in 2006. Some websites indicate that his birthday falls between March and May.

Family & Personal Life

Patrick and his family currently reside in Seattle, Washington. He has three older brothers, two of whom are named Daniel and Chris. He also has a younger sister named Grace.

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Although professional gaming takes up much of his time, he is still pursuing an education. After he became a regular streamer on Twitch, he started taking online classes. During an interview with FaZe Adapt, he revealed that his parents had always been supportive and were jubilant when he finally secured for himself a position in the FaZe team. His father helps him with his set-ups and streams. His mother stays with him in his gaming room during streaming, because the presence of a parent is required when he streams his content. Daniel, his oldest brother, helps him build his set-ups whereas, his second oldest brother Chris does all his photo shoots.

Although he grew up watching FaZe Clan videos, he never thought that one day he would be a member of the team.

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Initial Years As a Gamer

According to H1ghSky1, he became interested in gaming and ‘Fortnite’ in particular after seeing his friends play it. He started playing the game and soon became extremely good at it. In January 2017, he began streaming gameplay on Twitch

As a Member of the FaZe Clan

In March 2019, H1ghSky1 suddenly found himself at the centre of attention in the gaming community after Ali Kabani A.K.A. TSM Myth from the gaming group ‘Team SoloMid’, accidentally revealed that H1ghSky1 was joining the ‘FaZe Clan’. A few days after the leak, the official confirmation came from both FaZe and H1ghSky1 on their respective social media pages.

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H1ghSky1 has the distinction of being one of the youngest professional ‘Fortnite’ players in the world as well as the youngest member of the ‘FaZe Clan’. Following the announcement, he received congratulatory messages from fellow FaZe members like Nordan “Rain” Shat and Thomas “Temperrr” Oliveira.

Controversy Regarding H1ghSky1’s Age

In MaY 2019, professional gamer and popular content creator Turner “Tfue” Tenney filed a lawsuit against ‘FaZe’, his former team, over unfair labour practices. Among other things, Tfue accused the team of signing H1ghSky1 when he was 11 years old. Furthermore, he alleged that FaZe employees had put pressure on Patrick and his family not to reveal his true age. These claims contradicted assertions made by the ‘FaZe’ representatives that Patrick was 13 years old when he signed the contract.

Patrick’s contract with the ‘FaZe Clan’ reportedly violated California Labor Code section 1700.36, which stipulated that “no talent agency shall accept any application for employment made by or on behalf of any minor”. This meant that there were legal ramifications for Patrick’s parents as well as ‘FaZe’. Additionally, as Twitch does not allow anyone under 13 to stream on the platform, his account was removed in June 2019.

On 5 June 2019, after his ban from Twitch, Patrick admitted that he was not being truthful about his age, stating that he lied because he “couldn’t wait two more years”. He was prohibited from taking part in the Fortnite World Cup Open Qualifiers because of his age, and there were speculations that FaZe would nullify their contract with him. However, that did not happen, and he continued to be a part of the clan.

Presence on YouTube

H1ghSky1 created his ‘FaZe H1ghSky’ YouTube channel on August 8, 2017, and posted his first video, ‘Best of H1ghSky1’, on June 23, 2018. In the following months, he uploaded regularly and diligently, establishing himself as a prominent gamer on YouTube.

After he got banned from Twitch, YouTube became his primary social media platform, and he started streaming his gameplay on it. Some of the most popular videos on his channel are ‘The Life of the Youngest Member in FaZe Clan’ (13 million views), ‘Best duo in fortnite… | 30 Kill Duo Cup w/ Myth’ (four million), and ‘FaZe Highsky Hits a Trickshot with 1HP | Squads w/ Dad, & Jordan Fisher’ (three million).

After his real age became known, his social media accounts were shut down. However, he has since been able to get his YouTube channel back.

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Presence on Instagram

The oldest post on his @fazeh1ghsky1 Instagram account dates back to March 2019. It is a photo of him. In the caption, he announced that he had joined the FaZe Clan. His first Instagram video, also shared in March, is set to the music of American DJ Marshmellow. In the ensuing months, he has turned Instagram into a platform for interactions with his growing fanbase. He has shared photos taken with his friends, family members, and colleagues in the ‘FaZe Clan’ as well as numerous pictures and video clips related to ‘Fortnite’. At present, he has over 1.7 million followers.

Trivia

On June 24, 2019, H1ghSky1 released a diss track against Tfu featuring Logan Paul. Tfu used to be one of H1ghSky1’s idols, but that clearly has changed since the older man outed H1ghSky1’s real age in his lawsuit.