The popular YouTuber and philanthropist MrBeast, who you might better know as the guy with the grim grin of death you see in your YouTube recommendations no matter how many times you tell YouTube you’re not interested, is facing a class-action lawsuit concerning alleged workplace abuses on his reality show, Beast Games.
Filed by five anonymous contestants in Los Angeles, the Beast Games lawsuit claims they were denied proper wages, faced unsafe working conditions, and experienced sexual harassment while filming in a Las Vegas football stadium. Variety shared the heavily redacted complaint.
The Beast Games competition has been described as the largest in TV history, with reportedly over 2,000 contestants vying for a $5 million prize. Amazon MGM Studios is also named in the suit; Beast Games is meant to air on Prime Video.
It has not yet been revealed what the contestants will actually be doing to earn that money, but if the lawsuit is any indication, the contestants had to traverse obstacles like food and sleep deprivation, overcome the hurdles of misogyny, and wade through the terrifying pits of the US healthcare system after being hospitalized. Female contestants said they faced hostile conditions and were sexually harassed throughout the production.
Some alleged instances of mistreatment include a game where contestants were split into teams of 400 and had to lift a 10,000-pound boulder. All the contestants rushed to join their teams creating a “mosh pit” environment where several people were trampled. In another unspecified game, a rope reportedly tangled around a contestant’s neck while the production crew was encouraging the rest of the contestants to keep playing and ignore the person being strangled.
The lawsuit also says that the show misclassified contestants as volunteers to get some tax breaks, which resulted in $2.5 million in unlawful benefits from the state of Nevada. The lawsuit was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court. It demands that MrBeast’s company pay unpaid wages, expenses, and punitive monetary damages. As one unnamed female plaintiff put it, “I expected to be challenged, but I didn’t think I would be treated like nothing—less than nothing.”
Contestants reportedly went into it having been told that eliminated contestants would be offered $1,000 as a compensation prize—a prize they didn’t receive even months after the fact. After the lawsuit was made public, participants told The New York Times that production staff contacted them and offered them $1,000.
The post MrBeast Sued by ‘Beast Games’ Contestants for Sexual Harassment, Unsafe Working Conditions appeared first on VICE.
The post MrBeast Sued by ‘Beast Games’ Contestants for Sexual Harassment, Unsafe Working Conditions appeared first on VICE.
