YouTuber MrBeast was named in a lawsuit filed by five contestants from his upcoming “Beast Games” reality competition show.
The class action lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court accused the defendants — including Amazon, Mr Beast, 26, and his independent production company, Off One’s Base LLC — of subjecting the unnamed plaintiffs to “chronic mistreatment,” sexual harassment and more on the set of the Prime Video series that filmed over the summer.
In a redacted version of the lawsuit, the contestants said they are seeking a jury trial to determine monetary damages “likely totaling in the millions of dollars.”
The five plaintiffs claimed they were subjected “to unreasonable, unsafe, and unlawful employment conditions.”
The complaints listed in the lawsuit include sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, negligent infliction of emotional distress, failure to provide uninterrupted meal breaks, failure to provide uninterrupted rest breaks, failure to pay minimum wages, failure to pay overtime, false advertising, unfair business practices and more.
The lawsuit specifically claimed that the show — which allegedly has a $100 million budget — misrepresented itself by telling contestants there would be 1,000 participates, only for them to find out “upon arrival” that there were more.
This “reduced” the contestants’ chances of winning the purported $5 million grand prize, the suit said.
The complaint also alleged that MrBeast (whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson) “did not want to use the alleged unconstrained resources” that he had for the show “to provide fair wages, or even bare-minimum-legal working conditions.”
Instead, MrBeast and the defendants allegedly “employed superior bargaining power to coerce the contestants to sign unconscionable contracts with illegal terms and illusory obligations,” per the suit.
The defendants were specifically blamed for having “created, permitted to exist, and fostered a culture and pattern and practice of sexual harassment including in the form of a hostile work environment.”
The Post has reached out to MrBeast’s rep for comment.
Attorneys for the five anonymous people who filed the lawsuit said in a statement, “While participants knew upon signing the contract at the production’s inception that they were facing a potentially long and challenging competition, they allege getting a lot more than they bargained for.”
“Several contestants ending up hospitalized, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions,” the statement went on.
“Beast Games” was announced by Amazon in March.
The show was touted as “the biggest reality competition series with 1000 contestants competing for a $5 million cash prize—the biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming.”
Mr. Beast, the host and executive producer of the show, said at the time, “My goal is to make the greatest show possible and prove YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms. Amazon gave me the creative control I need to try and make it happen. I hope to make the YouTube community proud.”
The famous internet star has already been embroiled in other controversies.
He admitted over the summer to using “inappropriate language” in his early online days. There were also allegations that his former longtime colleague, Ava Kris Tyson made inappropriate sexual comments to minors.