Messages allegedly exchanged between MrBeast and his employees—including former collaborator Ava Kris Tyson—have been sent to the FBI, according to fellow YouTuber Rosanna Pansino.
At 26 years old, MrBeast—real name Jimmy Donaldson—holds the record for the most subscribers on YouTube, with more than 320 million followers at the time of writing. According to Forbesin 2022 he was earning $54 million a year, mostly from ads on his YouTube videos. He has also become known for giving back to his followers, often uploading videos of his charitable acts.
While MrBeast has always been loved by his loyal fans, online opinion of him has slowly started to shift after a video resurfaced online of him using racial and homophobic slurs. On August 1, MrBeast issued an apology over the comments. He has also been referred to as a “fraud” by some for allegedly staging content and has been accused of knowingly hiring a registered sex offender.
Additionally, a person claiming to have worked for MrBeast accused him of having prior knowledge of allegations that Tyson once groomed a teenager.
Jimmy Donaldson, the popular YouTuber known as MrBeast, is pictured on March 10, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A chat log purportedly featuring messages sent by the content creator has been sent to the FBI, according to fellow YouTuber Rosanna Pansino.
More
Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo
Tyson has faced recent scrutiny for her interactions with someone using the social media handle LavaGS that started when he was 13 and Tyson was 20. The public online interactions between the pair reportedly included references to nude images, sex and anime pornography, hentai. The posts have been taken down.
While Tyson has publicly apologized and LavaGS, who is now 20, has said that the videos contained “massive lies” that were “twisting the truth,” MrBeast took to X, formerly Twitter, in September to state that he was “disgusted and opposed to such unacceptable acts.”
Confirming that he had cut ties with Tyson, MrBeast said that he had hired “an independent third party to conduct a thorough investigation to ensure I have all the facts.”
Conversation around the allegations was revived on Sunday, when YouTuber Pansino shared a more than 7-minute video purporting to show messages exchanged between MrBeast and his employees, including Tyson.
Captioning the footage, Pansino—who made a name for herself baking on YouTube, where she has more than 14 million subscribers—wrote on X that she had also turned the message log over to the FBI.
“Working to sort through the MrBeast Company Chat Logs,” she said. “Here is part 1 with a few redactions (Discord handles).”
“These are from a Telegram channel that MrBeast (John Smith in these chats) used to communicate with Kris Ava Tyson and other employees,” Pansino continued. “Trigger warning as they discuss many inappropriate topics (especially for a company that targets children).”
Hours after sharing the post, which appeared to show a large portion of messages unrelated to work, Pansino stated that she had turned in the information in the hope it would launch a deeper probe.
“I have reported what I found and my concerns to the authorities @FBI,” she wrote. “Hopefully they will look into these MrBeast Telegram Company Chats Logs and other concerns.”
Pansino, who on Sunday also shared a YouTube video discussing details of the chat logs, did not state on X how she came to be in possession of the messages.
Newsweek has contacted representatives of MrBeast, the FBI and Pansino via email and Tyson via social media for comment.
MrBeast has an unlikely foe in Pansino, who has dedicated social media posts to criticizing the online sensation. She has investigated allegations of unsafe work conditions during production on MrBeast’s upcoming Amazon Prime Video reality show Beast Gamesas well as other accusations.
Pansino, 39, who was one of YouTube’s first stars, recently told NBC News that investigating the allegations surrounding MrBeast had “awakened something” in her.
“I thought maybe I’d retire in a few years, because I’m just in that happy place,” she said in September. “But it’s really awakened something in me, where, after you hear all these stories and you see everything going on, I can’t in good conscience do nothing.”
Stating that she has known MrBeast for around five years, Pansino told the news outlet that she had worked on a number of projects with him, including attempted business ventures. She also took part in three installments of MrBeast’s Creator Games series on YouTube, which saw internet personalities competing for a cash prize.
Things soured in October 2023, when Pansino publicly accused MrBeast of editing her out of the top three finalists in Creator Games 3. She has stated that she was hit with a storm of backlash that included death threats, prompting her to inform MrBeast that she would be deleting all of her posts and issuing an apology. The apology has since been deleted.
Pansino said that her decision to publicly speak out against MrBeast has prompted a number of people to contact her and share allegations of their purportedly unfavorable experiences while working on projects associated with the social media star.
“I think that they feel that they can trust me because I am one of the only large creators that has spoke up about my negative experience working with Jimmy and I also let it publicly be known that I am going to start speaking up more and trying to hold people accountable, especially him and the people at his company,” she said.
