This article contains spoilers for “Beast Games” Season 2, Episode 8, “Would You Steal $1,000,000?”
A surprised Monika Ronk is staring at a $500,000 pile of cash that’s just been wheeled out in front of her by Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. YouTube’s MrBeast, the creator and host of the exhilarating reality competition series “Beast Games,” currently airing its second season on Prime Video.
Ronk, one of 10 remaining contestants in the competition that began with 200 people, is being offered this money by Donaldson in exchange for a very important coin she has in her possession that, if she wins the reality competition series, would double the $5 million prize to $10 million. It’s also important to note that in this eighth episode of the 10-episode season, her fellow contestants do not know about this offer and it’s up to Ronk if she wants to tell anyone else what she may or may not choose. In short, Ronk sells the coin, takes the half-million dollars and has her eye on the prize. “It’s Monika’s villain arc season,” she joyfully says into the camera, ready to do whatever it takes to cross the finish line.
These kinds of choices are at the fundamental core of what makes “Beast Games” a roller coaster of emotions coupled with intense physical and mental challenges that include a tower-building puzzle, obstacle course, dodgeball game and being buried alive. But it’s the frequent offers of life-changing money by Donaldson that often shake even the strongest players.
For example, before Ronk sells the precious coin (since she’s buried alive along with the other eight contestants), Nick Mariano, another contestant in the top 10, is the first to decide how much of a million-dollar pile of money (yes, the show loves piling money into huge mounds) he wants to take for himself. He has vowed that he’ll take one-tenth of the money, but Mariano is reminded by Donaldson he can take it all if he wants, and he takes $250,000, which is going to have ripple effects but could also help Ronk slide under the radar to a major win.
At the center of all this drama, action and mayhem is the always enthusiastic Donaldson, who launched to international fame over 10 years ago by creating YouTube videos with elaborate challenges for himself and for others, often with cash rewards. Donaldson’s MrBeast channel has 466 million subscribers, making it the most-subscribed channel on YouTube — for comparison, the second most-subscribed, T-Series, has only about 310 million subscribers. He has brought the same level of jaw-dropping challenges and thrills to “Beast Games,” which launched in December 2024. The first season became Prime Video’s most-watched unscripted show ever, reaching 50 million viewers after only 25 days, according to the streamer.
Here, in an edited conversation, Donaldson talks about what he expects will happen and who he thinks has what it takes to win it all as the sophomore season races to its Feb. 25 finale. He also addressed the 2024 class-action lawsuit filed against his production company and Amazon by contestants who alleged unsafe working conditions, among other allegations.
At this point in the “Beast Games” season, where are your expectations for how things are going to play out?
Obviously, Nick took more than his fair share, which kind of set off the cascade. I think the entire show is definitely higher than where my expectations were, and I think you can see it. The depth of the characters and the storytelling is so much better than Season 1, which is what I really wanted, and now that we have people who took some money and Monika sold the coin, there’s all these different things going on that in these next few episodes it’s gonna get pretty crazy.
When you did the “Survivor” crossover in Episode 4, Jeff Probst reiterates how he has always talked about “Survivor” being a social experiment. Is that the same for “Beast Games”?
I thought Jeff hit it on the head. The question we asked in the experiment is, “What would you do for $5 million?” and just seeing how people play it. With most competition shows, people come into it with the expectation of eliminating people, but it feels like only in “Beast Games” is there this thing where they become friends, and they’re like, “Well, I might not eliminate you because I like you.”
I think that’s interesting, but that’s also partially because we actually built the city [Beast City] and at this point in the show, they’ve been there for almost an entire month. We filmed Episode 1 outside the city, so for probably 35 days they’ve been together nonstop, living together, sleeping near each other and hanging out and they develop crazy bonds that you don’t see in other shows.
Probst says at the end of the crossover episode that this is an annual crossover between the shows. Is that the plan?
It’s really cool. I’ll say this, it’s Jeff’s show, you know, maybe ask him. I thought it turned out great. I’m down if he’s down, but that’s all I should say.
In last week’s episode, you had families come visit the top 10 contestants and it was really emotional. Was that also strategic as far as when that was placed in the season, knowing the big choices coming next?
It’s a little bit of that. It’s also because we start with way more contestants, so if we did this in Episode 4, there’s way more people and so this is the right moment. Episodes 8, 9, 10 is literally just these 10 people. And even episode 7, for the most part. It’s really letting you know who these people are, showing their life outside of the game and giving you the depth before they start stealing money. It’s also before things get cutthroat and they really have to eliminate each other. I want every elimination in the top 10 to feel like a dagger hitting you in the heart, or something you’re really excited about if you hate the person, but I want you to have an emotional high every time.
Regarding the coffins that almost everyone but Nick is buried in in Episode 8, were they air conditioned? Were there provisions? What if Mother Nature came calling?
Obviously, before they went in, we were like, “Please, please use the bathroom!” Then we gave them some methods in there and we gave them lots of food down there. Luckily, it was at night, so a lot of them just ended up falling asleep because I thought it’d be pretty quick for people to just go pick money and come back, but some of them ended up thinking for two hours. It was a much harder decision than I thought it would be for them. The contestants in the dirt just ended up sleeping through most of it. I’ve been buried alive multiple times on the [YouTube] channel and when I bury myself alive, we do 10 feet of dirt. With them, I think we only did 2 feet or 3 feet, so if we ever needed to, we could pull them out, but it’s still the feeling of being in a coffin and sealed there.
As you were filming Episode 8 with the top 10, did you have an idea who would go all the way?
If I put myself back in Episode 8, Monika just sold the coin and you have no idea. “Is she gonna tell them? How’s she gonna play it off? Are they gonna find out?” There are some alliances, but now the alliances were just shattered because the money’s taken. It could swing anyway. It’s anyone’s game right now.
The big cliffhanger to the episode is Monika being told by Auguste that Jim told him she sold the coin when she told Jim in confidence. What can we expect for the Monika-Jim relationship?
Well, first off, isn’t it crazy that both of them made the top 10? What’s even funnier is I don’t think Monika lost a challenge and I don’t think Jim won a challenge. She just carried him through everything. Let’s just say it gets interesting, there is a lot of drama in the last two episodes and it gets pretty cutthroat because even in their case, only one of them can win, so at a certain point, they have to eliminate each other.
Also in this episode, you all leave Beast City and go to Saudi Arabia, of all places. Why Saudi Arabia?
Most people don’t realize this, but 70% of our audience is actually outside of North America, and we have a huge audience in the Middle East because we dub our content in Arabic. I’ve been wanting to do something international, and Saudi Arabia felt great because it’s in the middle of the Middle East. They also have an insane amount of studio space and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that in Episode 9 and 10 there’s some massive sets. We need really high ceilings, we need studios with no beams in them, and we need a lot of them side by side so we can go from set to set. They just so happen to have some of the largest studio spaces in the world that we could actually rent for a month straight, so we could build things and film on them. It was a perfect place, and I got to represent our Middle Eastern audience. It ended up being a really good decision.
Moving forward with these last two episodes of Season 2, how would you describe the challenges?
I’m just gonna say, Episode 10 is probably the greatest content I’ve ever filmed in my life. I don’t know how I’m ever going to top Episode 10. We definitely did not cheap out at the end. … And it gets pretty crazy. One of them wins $5 million, and I can’t say anything else. It’s good and it’s better than everything you’ve seen so far.
There was a lawsuit filed by several contestants in 2024. What were the differences in making sure the contestants were safe for Season 2 as compared with Season 1?
The big thing is in Season 1, we had 2,000 contestants; this time we have 200, and, just to be frank, not everyone takes losing well, and with less people we can help them, speak with them and make sure they understand everything going on. But in both seasons we had safety experts on set, safety coordinators [and] we tested everything before to the best of our ability.
In Season 1, there’d be people who were running to grab a flag and they’d trip over their own foot and scrape their arm. Any time there’s any kind of movement, I can’t guarantee that no one’s ever gonna get hurt in any way especially if there’s anything slightly physical. I can assure you, safety is my top priority. It breaks my heart if people ever get hurt and that’s not the goal. The goal for “Beast Games” is for it to be a utopia where you can win a ton of money, you compete, and you play your heart out and not get hurt.
Both seasons, we spent millions of dollars on safety and testing to ensure these things [are safe] and that’s why on this season, we’ve been putting out tons of behind-the-scenes [videos] just so people can see the lengths we go through with our safety coordinators to make sure everything is safe for the contestants.
Going off that, for “Beast Games” and everything else we’ve seen you do in your career, how hard is it to keep topping yourself?
Here’s the thing, the way I look at it is a lot of people see topping yourself as, “Oh, spend more money, bigger set.” It’s very granular. The way I see topping yourselves is, if there’s two dials you can slide, I see 500 dials. You can improve the editing, you can improve the music, you can improve the painting on the set, you can improve the camera you shoot with. This year, we shot with the same cameras [Alexa 265] that Marvel shoots with. The camera my one camera guy was holding was a $500,000 camera and there’s only 20 of them in the world. So that’s a lever that we increase that gives more depth.
You’ve been on this ride for about 10 years since you really blew up on YouTube. Have you been able to enjoy it even when you’re in the middle of it all?
I’ll be honest, I’m always grinding and doing stuff. The truth is, I get a lot of enjoyment out of the fans and seeing people enjoy it.
Today I slept pretty good but usually I’m pretty sleep-deprived, overworked, and we’ve got a lot going on. But “Beast Games” Season 1, over 100 million different people watched. If I look back on my life and I’m like, there are two paths: A path where I take more time off and I’m more rested, but the show that 100 million people watch is worse. Or there’s a path where the show’s better, and I just push through and I grind; 99.9% of the time, when I look back, I’m always like, “Yeah, I’m glad I chose the path where we prioritize making good content.”
There’s no guarantee that 10 years from now people will still watch me so I just want to make sure we’re pouring everything we have into everything we make and make an impact while we can.
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