Greg Cipes says Warner Bros. fired him on Valentine’s Day 2025, right after he told them he had Parkinson’s. A brutal detail, and he even leaned into the date, framing it as a symbolic heartbreak. Fans didn’t waste a second. Twitter, Reddit, TikTok all blew up with outrage. Hashtags like #SaveBeastBoy started trending. Posts accused Warner Bros. Animation of discrimination. Sam Register’s name became a dartboard. To fans, it was open and shut: the studio dumped Beast Boy because the actor got sick.
But the timeline doesn’t hold water.
Since that supposed Valentine’s Day firing, Cipes has repeatedly posted about recording Teen Titans Go! He’s shared Instagram reels, behind-the-scenes updates, even direct mentions of working on Season 10. That’s not the behavior of a guy cut loose months ago. And to make it stranger, he’s also said publicly that Sam Register was supportive when his diagnosis first became known. Those details get buried under the rage cycle, because “corporate boss showed compassion” doesn’t trend nearly as fast as “corporate boss is a monster.”
The contradictions pile up. Fired but still recording. Unsupported but also supported. Dropped on Valentine’s Day yet promoting Beast Boy sessions weeks later. Fans take the clean version, big studio heartlessly cans sick actor, because it’s the most cinematic. But the receipts suggest something messier. Maybe his contract wasn’t renewed past Season 10. Maybe WB tried to keep him on as long as they could. Maybe he’s exaggerating the timeline to make the sting feel sharper. None of those theories set social media on fire the way “Sam Register betrayed him” does.
Then there’s the COVID angle. Cipes has said the virus triggered his Parkinson’s. Is it possible? Technically, yes. Some studies suggest COVID could accelerate or worsen neurological conditions. But the science is still developing, and treating it like settled fact veers into misinformation. That wouldn’t be out of character. Cipes has a long track record of pushing alternative medicine, conspiracy content, and anti-vaccine rhetoric. He’s not faking Parkinson’s, but he does stretch the science to fit a narrative. And when you add that to a firing story with fuzzy details, it leaves plenty of room for doubt.
None of this matters to the fans though. To them, Cipes is Beast Boy. He’s been the voice for twenty years. He carried the character from the original Teen Titans to the chaos of Teen Titans Go! He’s part of their childhood, part of their kids’ childhoods now. When someone like that says he’s been wronged, the instinct is to protect him at all costs. Anger flows easy. Outrage trends fast. And nuance doesn’t stand a chance against the dopamine hit of a good villain.
The irony is that Sam Register’s name is being dragged more than anyone else’s, despite the fact that Cipes himself credited him for support early on. Register has spent years earning respect in animation circles for keeping shows alive and defending creators. But online, that reputation doesn’t matter. He’s the studio head, which makes him the face of the firing, whether it adds up or not.
So what do we really have here? A Valentine’s Day firing story that doesn’t line up with the Instagram posts. A beloved actor with a real diagnosis but a tendency toward fringe health claims. A fandom so protective of Beast Boy that they’ll torch Warner Bros. based on half a timeline. It’s a perfect storm of sympathy, skepticism, and internet rage. The truth is probably a lot more boring than the headline: contracts ending, episodes already recorded, a studio hedging its bets. But boring doesn’t trend.
For now, Greg Cipes is still Beast Boy, at least in the episodes already in the can. Beyond that, it’s murky. And unless Warner Bros. comes out with a clear statement, we’re stuck in the messy middle: fact and myth colliding, timelines contradicting themselves, fans screaming betrayal while the evidence suggests something fuzzier. Beast Boy’s catchphrase is “dude, chill,” but online, nobody’s chilling.
Hollywood After Dark 