The world’s most popular YouTuber is accused, alongside the American giant, of having exploited participants in his reality TV show “Beast Games”.
The production company of MrBeast, the world’s most popular YouTuber, is being sued alongside Amazon by contestants on his reality TV show “Beast Games”who claim to have been exploited during filming. The series, which has not yet been released, is inspired by the YouTube videos that made MrBeast famous, in which he offers money to strangers on the condition that they complete daring or extreme challenges. The show featured 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million jackpot.
Five of them filed a complaint on Monday in a Los Angeles court, denouncing “mistreatment”: the candidates were not properly paid, did not always have meal breaks and worked in a toxic work environment where sexual harassment was tolerated. MrBeast and Amazon’s company “shamelessly exploited labor” participants, according to the complaint, recalling that the budget for the series was “100 million dollars”. The value of the issue “is a direct result of the physical and emotional work of the candidates who compete in difficult conditions”the plaintiffs insist in this document.
This “class action” aims to compensate all participants in the series, by paying them a salary. Such class actions rarely result in a trial in the United States and are generally settled amicably by financial agreements. MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, did not immediately respond to requests from AFP. Also contacted, Amazon declined to comment.
The American influencer has more than 300 million subscribers on YouTube. In 2023, Time magazine named him one of the most influential people in the world. The same year, Forbes estimated his fortune at around half a billion dollars.
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