Epic Pulls Suggestive Fortnite Emote Ahead Of Ariana Grande Rift Tour Event

Epic Games has been forced to disable a new emote in Fortnite after a bug was allowing players to share some suggestive clips of it in action. The emote was added to the battle royale game in anticipation of the Ariana Grande Rift Tour taking place in-game today and throughout the weekend.

The emote, called the Bear Hug, is one of the few synced emotes that allows players to interact with each other in-game. An issue with the emote seems to break the sync placement of the two players, however, leading to some seriously awkward hugs that certainly weren't part of Epic's original plans. Epic has removed the emote from the store and disabled it for players who already purchased it for 200 V-Bucks, although it didn't specifically state why in the announcement.

Epic can't, of course, prevent videos of the bugged emote from being circulated, like the one example below.

It's lucky that Epic picked up the issue with the emote before the big Ariana Grande event taking place today, which could have been overshadowed by thousands of players performing the lewd motion. An in-game skin of Ariana Grande went up for sale earlier this week for 2,000 V-bucks, which allows you to pair a gun with the popstar's dulcet tones.

The Ariana Grande Fortnite Rift Tour concert debuts at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET today, with a handful of replays throughout the weekend.