If you want to get caught up on the Beast Games controversy (which is just one of the endless twisted shit he's being accused of right now):
(I'm going to be using "MrBeast" to mean the company, and "Jimmy" to refer to the man of the hour)
Jimmy has an upcoming Amazon show called Beast Games. If you haven't heard of it, it's described as Squid Game-esque, and is marketed as the biggest game show ever put together. There are 2,000 contestants (though it was originally advertised as 1,000, and the contestants weren't aware of the change), competing for a prize of $5 million, the largest game show prize in history. Contestants commit to 9 weeks of filming, with the first stage taking place in Las Vegas as a kind of qualifier.
Prospective contestants said they were asked if they were willing to die for MrBeast, if they would be buried alive, or be shot into space. The contract they signed also required them to say they are willing to die for Jimmy. A lot of them said they applied anyway because they desparately needed the money for a variety of personal reasons (like medical debt or student loans).
However, contestants have described the horrific conditions they were subjected to on set, having been treated like animals. Just to be clear, these are still allegations, and MrBeast has denied it as 'inaccurate'. But there is overwhelming confirmed evidence indicating that everything they have been accused of is 100% true.
Apparently the show starts with Jimmy appearing looking down at the contestants as a Jesus figure, surrounded by money, while the contestant's were told to scream praise at him "like he's god". He proceeds to watch the challenges from above, sitting on a throne like Nero.
The contestants were asked to give up their medications and inhalers to the production staff. Medical staff were worried as to what would happen, and allegedly secretly told contestants to hide their meds in their clothes and smuggle them onto set instead of allowing them to be taken away. When the game actually started, contestants who had given up their meds were denied them for days. Many of the meds were also lost by staff and never found. At least two had seizures because they were refused their epilepsy medication. It took several minutes for medical staff to reach them when it happened.
They also had to give up their clean underwear for some fucking reason, and many never got it given back during filming, or even after, because the staff apparently lost it.
Women were refused tampons and pads, and were bleeding through their clothes. They were told by staff that they didn't need them, because it "wasn't a medical emergency". The crew were seen laughing at the women begging for clean underwear. Contestants were also refused new contact lenses, and told they couldn't take out their old ones.
Contestants were also starved, with one saying he went 20 hours without being fed. The meals they did receive were almost nothing - one consisted of a miniscule amount of cold oatmeal, a few pieces of raw vegetables, and a hard-boiled egg. They were sometimes given Jimmy's shitty Feastable chocolate bars (you know, the ones that are also controversial because MrBeast lied about their nutritional content), so they could be filmed gushing over how incredible it was. One contestant described how her group would secretly collectively hoard the chocolate as supplies, because they had no idea when they would next be fed, if at all.
People with dietary requirements like allergies were especially fucked, because they were served the same thing as everyone else instead of replacement meals, so they just couldn't eat. A diabetic, after finally being given her insulin, long after she was meant to have it, was denied food she needed to take it. She was told she didn't genuinely need to eat. After a lot of groveling, she was given half a banana.
When other contestants went to staff to beg for food, medical care, or other help, they were refused it, and apparently some were screamed at or cursed out for having the nerve to even ask.
There was barely any water available, so in the Nevada heat sunstroke was almost universal. Contestants were vomiting or passing out, and some were said to be hospitalised from dehydration. Occasionally, gatorade was temporarily available for rehydration, but the staff didn't announce it (their microphones didn't work properly apparently), so most contestants only learned about it through word-of-mouth from their teammates. Within days, the gatorade ran out.
There were also sometimes brief windows where medical care was made available, but again, staff didn't actually inform anyone when this happened, with people only hearing about it through the grapevine.
Sleep deprivation was also a huge issue. Because the challenges took place at night, contestants had to sleep in broad daylight on the turf floor of the stadium in a cheap sleeping bag. They were only allowed to sleep for 3-4 hours at a time.
The male contestants realised they could get ahead by simply attacking the female contestants with no consequence. Female contestants were knocked out cold during the games, and dragged off by production staff. This wasn't just during the challenges either - food was so scarce that when meals were passed around, contestants would steal or fight over each other's food, and the male contestants would sometimes beat the female contestants and take their meals by force.
The teams were incredibly unbalanced. Although there were a wide array of contestants, all the challenges were physical. The young athletic male contestants formed their own groups, and wouldn't give team vests to women or elderly contestants, apparently physically ripping them off of them.
There was almost no medical staff, and only two ambulances for 2,000 people (plus crew). Horrific injuries are reported, the majority suffered by women, from beatings and tramplings. One thing we know to be true is that local hospitals began receiving Beast Games contestants with serious injuries, including broken bones.
One contestant described to the New York Times how she was elminated, leaving the tournament bruised and bleeding. She was offered on camera a $1,000 consolation prize, only for the staff to then turn off the cameras and immediately take the money back.
Eliminated contestants were offered $1,000 to sign an NDA. When an article about what happened came out, MrBeast called all the contestants and offered them another $1,000 in compensation, as well as free therapy.
MrBeast blamed the poor conditions on Crowdstrike (what?). They've said they'll conduct an internal, not independent, review, and use this as a learning experience for the next stage of the competition in Toronto. One of the actual reasons is that Jimmy actively sought out workers who were not part of a union, so they wouldn't be beholden to safety standards.
MrBeast has been blatantly trying to censor online criticism of Jimmy, and coverage of both this and the myriad of other controversies emerging over the past two weeks, on YouTube, Reddit and Twitter. Additionally, DogPack404, a former employee of MrBeast who released a video on him, received two cease-and-desist letters from law firms representing Jimmy, accusing him of personal defamation and breaking an NDA. YouTube has also been protecting their most popular and lucrative creator, demonetising, age-restricting and shadowbanning videos on him.
The fact that Jimmy is being accused of so much abominable shit that this isn't even the biggest controversy right now is fucking wild.
