It’s been a Hell of a summer for MrBeast, and things don’t seem to be looking up now with a potential class action lawsuit filed against the YouTube superstar and Amazon by contestants from the upcoming Beast Games show.
As the anonymous “Contestant 5” states in the heavily redacted complaint: “I expected to be challenged, but I didn’t think I would be treated like nothing — less than nothing.”
Possibly running into the millions in damages if certified, the September 16 filing in LA Superior Court alleges that MrBeast and the Jeff Bezos created streamer “subjected the Contestants to unreasonable, unsafe, and unlawful employment conditions.” With claims of sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, false advertising, and failure to pay minimum wage or overtime, those conditions saw “several contestants …hospitalized,” the 54-page jury trial demanding document alleges.
Perhaps most damaging corporately to MrBeast and Amazon is the allegation the supposedly $100 million budgeted Beast Games production played fast and loose with the rules to secure Nevada tax credits. The filing says Beast Games made “Plaintiffs and the Proposed Class to enter into illegal contracts and providing false information to the State of Nevada to obtain unearned tax credits.”
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In supposedly misclassifying contestants like the five initial plaintiffs as Nevada citizens and otherwise, the far from skint MrBeast and Amazon were able to snag about $2,252,523 in incentives from the Silver State.
Based on MrBeast’s already successful YouTube show, back in the spring Beast Games gave itself bragging rights “to become the biggest reality competition series ever with 1000 contestants competing for a $5 million dollar cash prize.” Drawing in around 1,000 participants, MrBeast serves as Beast Games host and executive producer with the show set to premiere exclusively later this year or in early 2025 on Prime Video domestically and internationally.
Just launching off MrBeast’s 316 million YouTube subscribers alone and Prime Video’s massive reach, the still in production Beast Games has streaming hit written all over it, right?
Sure, but with all the hoopla in which the $5million payout Beast Games competition show was announced back in March, you’d think MrBeast and Amazon would want to put their best face forward on these allegations. Even more so, being that most of what the suit asserts had been made public last month in a big New York Times feature, you’d think MrBeast and Amazon would be ready with some sort of response.
Alas no.
Neither representatives for the influencer born Jimmy Donaldson nor Amazon responded to request from Deadline for comment on the complaint. If and when they do, this post will be updated.
Instead, in echoes of the NYT article on alleged mistreatment on the Las Vegas set of the Beast Games, claims by the five unnamed contestants who filed the action detail “suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions.”
According to the complaint, none of this was by accident as “Defendants exercised total control over the manner, means and timing of the work performed by the Contestants, by controlling essentially every aspect of their lives during the production of the show.” That control was in part fueled by the so-called “How to Succeed in MrBeast Productions” manual, which pushed mantras lies “empower the boys” and “let them be idiots.” Still, the filings proclaims that “Defendants’ management, up to and including senior management and ownership” were fully aware of the alleged “violence and sexual harassment” on Beast Games, and did nothing.
“The foregoing acts by Defendants created an environment during Beast Games that was so void of humane standards that Defendants ended up volunteering to cover the cost of the Contestants’ therapy, it was that bad,” the complaint exclaims.
Seems a bit of a distance away from the promises of last month that MrBeast’s rapidly expanding company to “hire a chief human resources officer and require company-wide sensitivity training.”
The allegations in this potential Beast Games class action don’t quite jive either with Donaldson’s hiring of pricey law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to investigate former co-host Ava Tyson, who left MrBeast in July after allegations surfaced of inappropriate sexual messages with minors. Along with that this summer, there was the NYT expose of Beast Games and MrBeast under fire for slurs he made in videos from his early years.
That’s why they call it survival of the fittest.