YouTuber MrBeast has been named in a lawsuit claiming participants in his $5 million jackpot game show were exploited.
Contestants say they were subjected to unfair treatment and sexual harassment while participating in what has been billed as the world’s biggest live game show.
Papers filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday allege contestants were not paid proper wages, and were not given meal breaks or appropriate rest.
The plaintiffs are identified only as contestants 1-5 in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed against Amazon Alternative LLC and Jimmy Donaldson’s (MrBeast’s) production company, MRB2024 LLC.
The suit seeks payment of all wages owed, an injunction forbidding the labor actions alleged and certification of the suit as a class-action complaint.
“Defendant production companies and Amazon shamelessly exploited the labor of… people who served as contestants on the forthcoming $100 million MrBeast-Amazon production ‘Beast Games,’ which Amazon promotes as the world’s largest live game show with the biggest single prize in the history of television,” the suit states.
The entertainment value of the show “arises directly from the physical and emotional labor of the contestants who compete under pressure-cooker conditions for life-changing prize money, with one person purportedly to win $5 million in the end,” the suit alleges.
There was no immediate response from MrBeast to an AFP inquiry. Amazon declined to comment.
MrBeast is one of the most successful YouTubers of all time, with more than 300 million subscribers.
His output includes contests and challenges with sometimes high value prizes for participants.
As well as an extensive online presence, he has also founded philanthropic ventures.
In 2023, Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people.
In the same year, Forbes put his net worth at around half a billion dollars.