Steven Universe had a history of its content being leaked, accidentally or intentionally, from episode titles and screenshots to entire episodes. To the point where an entire subreddit
dedicated to them was made during its third season. Due to an issue with Cartoon Network's website that lasted for a large chunk of the show's run, it was standard for at least screenshots of the first few minutes of many episodes to leak a few hours before airing.
- Early in the show's first season, the episode listing on Cartoon Network's website accidentally listed titles and descriptions for every episode of the season, giving away a lot about the general trajectory of its Story Arc almost a year in advance.
- A similar event occurred early in the second season, giving away the titles (though not the descriptions) for not only every episode for the rest of season two, but also season three (except "Bismuth", thankfully!), and even four episodes of season four.
- Towards the end of season two, Cartoon Network accidentally aired a promo which showed a clip from the following season's "Barn Mates", showing Peridot presenting Lapis with a gift. This leak came at a time when Lapis was still fused as Malachite deep in the ocean.
- In February 2016, Cartoon Network UK accidentally leaked the entirety of the Malachite vs. Alexandrite battle from "Super Watermelon Island", three months before the episode officially aired in the US.
- The scene from "Barn Mates" involving the arrival of the Roaming Eye was also leaked by Cartoon Network UK at the same time as the Malachite vs. Alexandrite battle.
- Four weeks before the five-episode Out of This World Story Arcnote aired, all five episodes were posted on Cartoon Network's website and certain on-demand services without any buildup. Within a day, most sources removed all but the first episode. While one network representative claimed they were released deliberately to promote the network's streaming services (indeed, CN would begin making a habit of releasing episodes up to a month early on streaming), most assumed the immediate retraction of the episodes meant this case was unintentional.
- A low-resolution version of "Lion 4: Alternate Ending" was leaked online by a child recording the episode from his On Demand service about a month before it actually aired.
- During the initial run of War Paint, a fan of the show who watched the performance complimented actress Patti LuPone on both her performance in the musical and as Yellow Diamond in Steven Universe. Patti thanked the fan and said "Christine [Ebersole] plays White Diamond!", something Christine herself confirmed at a War Paint signing in July 2017, almost a year before White Diamond was officially mentioned in the show itself, much less spoke.
- In January 2018, four months before "Can't Go Back" aired, Lapis' European Portuguese VA Vânia Blubird posted an already dubbed clip of the episode's song, "That Distant Shore", to her Instagram Story, which was supposed to be private. All her posts were deleted shortly after the news spread, and the VA in question was fired and replaced.
- On May 1st, 2018, a documentary podcast featuring footage from Steven Universe included clips from the final episodes of the fifth season, revealing massive spoilers from "Legs From Here to Homeworld" (which wouldn't officially air on TV until December), along with clips from "What's Your Problem?" and "The Question" (which wouldn't air until July) in a move deemed to be done by "some careless jerk who doesn't even work in our timezone" by one of the show's former producers, Ian Jones-Quartey. The video was quickly taken down from YouTube for re-editing and some members of the staff issued apologies on Twitter, but by then the spoilers were everywhere.
- In conjunction with the final two arcs, Spotify was supposed to release the lyrical songs the day after the episodes featuring them aired. Instead, they were uploaded the day before, thus giving unintentional sneak peaks into the plot. Similarly, those following the Steven Universe feed following "Familiar" were notified of the song "Escapism" going on preorder, which unfortunately listed the singer, something that was kept secret up to that point.
- The Movie:
- On August 6, 2019 (over three weeks prior to the movie's September 2 premiere), a snippet from a documentary about the movie's production was put up on Cartoon Network's YouTube channel, then taken down an hour later because a drawing in the background gave away the villain's name, Spinel ("Your new worst enemy, Spinel"), which had been kept secret up to that point. Shortly after, it was discovered that the servers for the movie's official website had an image of that same name (at the time, the website used four question marks to hide her identity on the characters tab), confirming it was indeed her true name.
- A partial YouTube listing for the movie, also released on August 6, included a few voice actors, directors, and producers in the credits that hadn't been officially revealed at the time of the listing's posting.
- The soundtrack title list was leaked on Apple Music a couple days before the movie's release, with fans who indulged in leaks theorizing on what the titles meant and what type of songs they'd be, and whether they'd heard the song before in the trailers. Humorously, almost everyone thought that "system/BOOT.pearl_final(3).Info" was a Working Title, or a glitch in wherever the original files were found — only to learn when the soundtrack officially released that that's actually what the song's title is.
- Steven Universe: Future:
- "Snow Day" was accidentally put on the Google Play store mere hours before its premiere on TV.
- On January 11th, 2020, a minute-long audio clipnote from "Fragments" was discovered on dbree.org (titled "SU EPIC LEAK.mp3"), that had actually been uploaded on November 30th, 2019 (a week before the show had even premiered).
- On February 13th, 2020, a leaked clip of Steven's voice from "Growing Pains" and an incredibly low quality video clip from "I Am My Monster" was briefly featured in a video by a Spanish YouTube channel.
- On February 22nd, 2020, a leaked audio clip mostly drowned out by hip-hop music from "Together Forever" was discovered on wi.to, titled "THE_JAJAS_ARE_RIGHT_AGAIN.mp3".
- A majority of the most spoilery plot points from the second half of the series were leaked by a Spanish Twitter user over the course of a few weeks before the final episodes aired.
- During mid-September 2020, many pages from the "End of an Era" artbook were leaked onto the internet one month before it officially came out thanks to people bypassing the Amazon previews limitations.
