Jimmy Donaldson, better known by his online username, MrBeast, is a YouTube personality famous for his grand challenges such as “7 Days Stranded in A Cave” and “I Built 100 Houses and Gave Them Away.” This has caused Donaldson to gain international fame along with a toy line, candy line and a new show with Amazon Prime called “Beast Games.”
Donaldson announced back in March 2024 that he was partnering with Amazon in a $100 million deal to make a reality television show in which people would compete in challenges to win five million dollars. Application to be on the show opened in May 2024 with the first round of filming starting in July 2024 before moving to Canada in August to finish the film. However, problems had already started for Donaldson and his crew.
Allegedly, contestants that applied were told they were competing as one of 1,000 back in May. However, went they showed up to filming in July, they found out they were one of 2,000 and that this first round of elimination was not going to be on Amazon Prime but MrBeast’s channel.
Adding to this, contestants argued that the staff was not prepared for this number of people, with them not receiving enough of or outright being denied food, water, medication and beds during production. Constants also argue that there were various injuries on set because there were no safety measures in place, and there was little to no medical treatment for injured people. Also, constants allege that there was sexual harassment on set and people not getting paid by Donaldson’s team after leaving the games.
This has led to several investigations by news outlets like Rolling Stone, as well as a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court. This has also led to several people, like YouTube personality Rosanna Pansino and former workers, coming out about negative experiences that they have had with Donaldson in the past. All this negative attention also led people looking into Donaldson’s past and crew which led to some concerning behaviors getting uncovered like overworking employees, favoritism, faking videos, hiring of potential groomers and not paying the charities that are part of his videos.
All of this could explain why the show has 17% on Rotten Tomatoes and several critics saying that this feels like a real life “Squid Game”, a TV show that had people compete to the death in children’s games for money. Squid Game was supposed to criticize capitalist society, however, that message seemed to be lost on Donaldson, as he has already created a video on his channel called “$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!” that has 686 million views and seems to have been recreated by having another video called “50 YouTubers Fight For 1,000,000 Dollars.”
The show has 10 episodes in this series and is getting released every Thursday on Amazon Prime with the next one getting released Feb 6, 2025.
