A scathing New York Times investigation into a reality series produced by YouTube star MrBeast with Amazon MGM studios paints an extremely negative picture of what contestants experienced.
The show, called Beast Games, brought thousands of people to Las Vegas to participate in various stunts, all for a shot at a grand prize of $5 million. Shooting for the competition started in July, with 2,000 contestants gathered in Nevada at Allegiant Stadium for several days. Competitors ate, slept, and lived inside the stadium.
The Times story is the latest blow against MrBeast’s empire, which has been under fire from a co-host’s alleged grooming of a minor and comments MrBeast himself made in his younger days on a podcast.
While fans of MrBeast’s YouTube contests likely expected strange and risky challenges, the Lord of the Flies atmosphere they encountered went beyond the usual.
Several contestants told The Times that they had been asked whether they would be willing to be buried alive or travel to outer space. Contestants had to sign nondisclosure agreements.
Casino.org’s Virtual Vegas column reported a long list of contestant abuses by participants.
Speaking with The New York Times, more than a dozen people who participated in the first installment of Beast Games said that they had not received adequate food or medical care, and said some competitors had suffered injuries from the physical challenges.
Another participant confirmed to Deadline that the entire production “was an utter s*** show, with many contestants going without their medication or proper meals for days, as well as being forced to sleep outside due to the run of the shooting days and extremely poor organization by production.” The person asked for anonymity because of signing an NDA.
Deadline received a response statement from a spokesperson for MrBeast.
“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 communications issues, which we are currently reviewing, but we are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto for our next production have enthusiastically accepted our invitation. We have communicated directly with 97% of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for feedback, have launched a formal review of the process, and have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history.”
The 1,000 participants who made it through all four challenges in the stadium without being eliminated are now preparing for the next stage of the competition, which is set to be filmed in Canada in early August.
“We are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto for our next production have enthusiastically accepted our invitation,” the MrBeast spokesperson wrote to the Times.