Beast Games: A complete recap of the scandals that dog the YouTube star’s record-breaking game show

YouTube sensation MrBeast is making his TV hosting debut with his controversial Amazon Prime show Beast game landing on December 19.

MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, is the biggest YouTuber in the world and currently has more than 300 million subscribers on his account. Much of his content revolves around expensive stunts, involving hundreds of people, and philanthropy projects.

In March, he announced that he was teaming up with Amazon MGM Studios to create a reality competition show called Beast game. The show promises the winner a prize of $5 million. (£3.94m), the biggest prize in streaming and TV history.

According to Amazon, it will see “1,000 contestants compete in nail-biting, physical, mental and social challenges”.

The release adds, “Week by week, contestants will use their strength and wits to stay in the game with the hope of becoming the multi-million dollar winner.”

However, despite the size of the production and the historic price on offer, Beast game has been dogged by controversy since it began shooting and is now facing a lawsuit filed by five unhappy contestants.

The suit alleges that Amazon and MrBeast’s production company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime; failed to prevent sexual harassment; subjected participants to “inflicted emotional distress”; did not provide for meal breaks, rest breaks or access to basic hygiene and that participants were exposed to “dangerous circumstances and conditions as a condition of their employment”.

Insufficient food

In August New York Times reported that participants in the show did not have adequate access to food and medical care.

“We signed up for the show, but we didn’t sign up not to be fed or watered or treated like humans,” said one contestant on condition of anonymity as they signed a non-disclosure agreement.

A meal, described by several different participants, consisted of a small portion of cold oatmeal, a few pieces of raw vegetables and a single hard-boiled egg.

Participants reported being fed these small meals twice a day, although a MrBeast spokesperson maintained they were offered three meals a day.

Several participants said they had approached production staff for help with medical, food and hygiene issues, only to find the staff unhelpful and seemingly disorganized.

A longer report from Las Vegas 3 news on 26 September said that staff working on the show had called it “beyond embarrassing” and that it was the most “unprofessional” production they had ever worked on, with some calling for Donaldson to be “blacklisted” .

The report claims that contestants were not allowed to bring any belongings, including medication, with them to Allegiant Stadium, where 2,000 attendees were based for a preliminary qualifying “episode” of the show meant for YouTube.

The majority of the contestants stayed at the Rio and Luxor casinos, where the production medics were also based, but they had “no idea that (some contestants) were at other casinos”.

A doctor named Mona claims that “their stuff was supposed to turn into us and never was” and that “everything was on the move”. She added: “We didn’t have a real understanding of what they expected or even if they knew what they expected. I don’t think it was planned because all the information was not given.”

Another fighter, Kara, who worked at Allegiant Stadium between 6-9 p.m. July, said there was also a major sanitation issue with the portable toilets used on set.

She claims she only saw the portable toilets emptied once during the four days on set, resulting in overcrowding. Kara added on the third day, “We had a guy come up to us with his sleeping bag and his sleeping bag was covered in excrement.”

Kara also said an unnamed participant in the dispute was threatened with “termination” after they refused to clean up the mess, despite not being given the proper equipment to handle human waste.

A third participant, Hannah, who was responsible for guiding and coordinating participants, said she felt “unprofessional” after being left without any call sheets and that she “should have had more protocols to help me (do my work)”.

She also claims one attendee had a seizure and “they just left him there”, with the incident only brought to their attention an hour later with the local EMS team then treating the patient.

MrBeast and Amazon sued for ‘chronic abuse’

In September Black reported that MrBeast and Amazon had been sued for “chronic abuse” and sexual harassment.

The suit alleges that Amazon and MrBeast’s production company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime; failed to prevent sexual harassment; subjected participants to “inflicted emotional distress”; did not provide for meal breaks, rest breaks or access to basic hygiene and that participants were exposed to “dangerous circumstances and conditions as a condition of their employment”.

In a statement, lawyers for the anonymous contestants said: “While the contestants knew when they signed the contract at the start of production that they faced a potentially long and challenging competition, they claim they got much more than they bargained for.”

They added: “Several participants ended up being hospitalized, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while experiencing chronic abuse, humiliation and, for the female participants, hostile working conditions.”

A separate claimant, identified only as “Participant 5”, said she only joined Beast Games because she was a fan of MrBeast’s YouTube videos and that they made her “smile during the Covid-19 pandemic”. but felt she was treated as “less than nothing” while you were on the show.

She added: “As one of the women, I can say that it absolutely felt like a hostile environment for us. We honestly couldn’t have been respected any less – as people, much less employees – if they tried.”

The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Robert Pafundi, said in a statement: “As extreme as the allegations against the defendants are here, the law could not be clearer. The participants entered into contracts and were promised compensation for their services. Their expectation of compensation, together with being consistently under the control and supervision of the production staff makes them employees under California law.As such they were entitled to and denied certain protections.And when you add the extreme neglect, degradation, harassment and inhuman conditions – it is simply a massive dereliction of duty, for which the defendants must and will now be held accountable.”

MrBeast replies

In a statement given to The Hollywood Reporter in August, a spokesperson for the YouTuber said: “The MrBeast promotional video shoot, which included over 2,000 participants, was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather and other unexpected logistical and communication issues that we are currently going through, but we are grateful that large seeing that all those invited to Toronto for our next production have enthusiastically accepted our invitation.”

“We have communicated directly with 97 per cent of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for feedback, launched a formal review of the process and taken steps to ensure we learn from this experience, and we are delighted to be able welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s biggest game show in history.”

Donaldson has not formally commented on the allegations, but on November 25 he responded to a post on X/Twitter, writing: “We have tons of the behind-the-scenes (clips) that drop when the show does to show, how blown out of proportion by these claims. Just can’t release it now because it would ruin the games.”

The independent has contacted MrBeast and Amazon for comment.