MrBeast, Amazon sued by Beast Games contestants for "chronic mistreatment," sexual harassment

Apparently, Prime Video didn’t learn from the backlash to Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge last year that large-scale competition shows need actual regulations and safety measures for their contestants. Beast Games, the upcoming Prime series from YouTube personality MrBeast, is the latest game show to face allegations of mistreatment and “chaos” from its contestants. Now, five of those anonymous participants are suing MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) and Amazon for, among other things, failure to pay minimum wages and overtime, sexual harassment and failure to prevent harassment, negligent infliction of emotional distress, failure to provide uninterrupted meal breaks, and false advertising. The suit is currently seeking class action status.

With over 1,000 participants competing for a single $5 million cash prize, Beast Games is touting itself as the largest reality show in history, according to Variety. MrBeast is known on YouTube for over-the-top challenges like “I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive” and his own version of Squid Game, which he launched two years ago. Still, participants of the latest challenge are saying he wasn’t remotely up to the task of organizing something on this scale. “It’s a Fyre Fest kind of feeling,” an anonymous crew member who “left the production early” told Rolling Stone. “There’s a reason why this level of production hasn’t been attempted before, and it certainly should never have been attempted without people that know what they are doing.”

According to the redacted lawsuit, Beast Games contestants were deprived of medical care, food, sleep and basic hygiene. Many specific sexual harassment allegations have been redacted from the document, but one excerpt from an alleged “How to Succeed in MrBeast Production” handbook was left uncovered. It reads: “It’s okay for the boys to be childish… If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them… Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots.”

“I wanted to join because I was a fan of MrBeast and his videos made me smile during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said one female plaintiff in a statement shared by Variety. “I expected to be challenged, but I didn’t think I would be treated like nothing—less than nothing. And as one of the women, I can say it absolutely felt like a hostile environment for us. We honestly could not have been respected less—as people, much less employees—if they tried.”

“While participants knew upon signing the contract at the production’s inception that they were facing a potentially long and challenging competition, they allege getting a lot more than they bargained for,” the plaintiff’s attorneys added in their own statement. “Several contestants ending up hospitalized, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions.”

A release date for Beast Games has not yet been announced.