Dave Portnoy, the founder of the popular sports pop culture website Barstool Sports, had his Twitter account suspended for a brief period on Friday night.
It’s unclear what Portnoy did to warrant the suspension. A rep for Twitter would not comment on the suspension except to say “the account you reference has been reinstated.”
His Twitter page was suspended but then was reinstated a short time later, albeit without his followers or verification. For the duration of the suspension, his profile page, @stoolpresidente, simply said “Account Suspended” with a line that read, “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.”
Once his account was restored, he simply tweeted, “I’m back,” with a short video of Ric Flair.
Portnoy previously had over 2.5 million followers on Twitter.
Dave Portnoy was well aware of the suspension, having made two Instagram Story posts with #freeportnoy in them. The hashtag “FreeDavePortnoy” was trending on Friday night.
The main Barstool Sports Twitter account, which has close to three million followers, remains active.