NEW YORK (AP) — MrBeast, YouTube’s biggest star and a philanthropic force with nearly unmatched influence among young audiences, admitted Wednesday to using “inappropriate language” in his early days online amid mounting controversy surrounding him and a former collaborator.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, and his reportedly $700 million empire have come under renewed fire in recent weeks after allegations surfaced that Donaldson made racist comments in the past and that a longtime colleague made inappropriate sexual comments to minors.
“When Jimmy was a teenager, he acted like many children and used inappropriate language while trying to be funny,” a spokesperson for the YouTuber said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Over the years, he has apologized repeatedly and has learned that with increasing influence comes a greater responsibility to be more aware and sensitive to the power of language. After making some bad jokes and other mistakes as a youngster, as an adult he has focused on engaging the MrBeast community to work together to make a positive impact around the world.”
His highly produced videos of whimsical challenges and lavish gifts, often accompanied by expressive thumbnails and punchy titles, have attracted a record 307 million YouTube subscribers. His latest uploads include “Ages 1 – 100 Decide Who Wins $250,000” and “I Built 100 Houses And Gave Them Away!” which, like most of his videos, have been viewed more than 100 million times.
The philanthropic sector has greeted this content with a mix of praise for encouraging direct generosity and criticism of exploitative “inspiration porn.” Donaldson’s larger ambitions have been made clear in recent years with the launch of his snack food brand Feastables, a branded burger chain that garnered bad reviews that led him to sue the company behind it, and a deal with Amazon Prime Video for a reality competition featuring 1,000 contestants.
But before Donaldson took YouTube by storm with his often absurd charity efforts, he built a significant following as a gaming content creator, sometimes interacting with viewers via livestreams.
‘Blind ambition for attention’
In a 2017 clip that YouTube influencer Rosanna Pansino shared in a July 24 post on X, Donaldson responded to a viewer who commented about selling black people for money, saying that “the most I would probably pay is 300.” Donaldson also used a homophobic slur at multiple points. After a commenter repeated a racial slur, Donaldson eventually instructed his audience to stop using the word in chat.
Pansino told the AP that she had worked on several potential business ventures with Donaldson in recent years, though none ever came to fruition. Last fall, she publicly complained about an edit of her appearance in a MrBeast video, but eventually deleted the posts after saying she had received death threats from fans.
Pansino said that, contrary to popular belief, it is “simply not true” that Donaldson has always made “family-friendly content.”
“His first videos, where he was trying to be an edgy gamer and streamer, and he was saying horrible, nasty things — I didn’t know that,” Pansino said. “I had no idea that history was there.”
In a separate clip from a podcast appearance in May 2017, Donaldson implied that he had sex with rapper Bhad Bhabie, whose real name is Danielle Bregoli and who was 14 at the time. The video has since been removed for “violating YouTube’s community guidelines.”
Podcast co-host Leon Lush defended Donaldson in a video posted to X last week. Lush said that Donaldson clarified later in the episode that he “wouldn’t do that” because Bregoli was “way too young” and joked that they had to “say something offensive that people can take out of context.”
Lush added that the recording was “painful in retrospect” and dismissed the outrage as “a molehill turning into a mountain.”
“Not being funny seems to be the worst offense here. When you combine a propensity for dark humor with a blind ambition for attention, you get” sometimes this content, Lush said. “Was being edgy the best strategy? Definitely not, although sometimes it worked to get attention.”
Controversy over collaboration
These excerpts came to light after internet sleuths alleged that Ava Kris Tyson, MrBeast’s longtime collaborator, had been acting inappropriately towards minors online.
Under scrutiny are Tyson’s previous conversations with an underage teenage fan, including public messages in which the two discussed nude photos and anime pornography. The fan denied any exploitation in a July 22 message to X, describing such allegations as “huge lies and distortions of the truth.”
In a July 24 post to X, Nate Weyman said that he and the fan had done unpaid technical work to moderate Tyson’s streams and that they all played video games together “for hours on end.” Weyman said that Tyson had a private Discord server with about 10 people, mostly other minors around the age of 14, and that he regularly spammed the server with pornographic images.
Tyson announced her departure from “all things MrBeast and social media” in a July 23 post on X. Donaldson posted on July 24 that he was “disgusted and opposed to such unacceptable actions” and that he was hiring independent investigators to look into the allegations.
Tyson has been the target of transphobic attacks since coming out as transgender last year. Last April, Donaldson defended his close friend from a video in which she described her as a “nightmare” for MrBeast. Donaldson wrote on X at the time that “this is getting absurd,” affirmed their friendship, and said that “this transphobia” was starting to anger him.
Giveaways questioned
Last week, a former employee accused Donaldson of rigging contests in his videos, running illegal lotteries and misleading his fans. The person made the sweepstakes allegations under an alias in a YouTube video that has been viewed more than 6.9 million times since it was posted last week.
Donaldson has not publicly responded to the unsubstantiated claims. Chucky Appleby, who co-founded YouTube analytics platform ViewStats with Donaldson, said the former employee was fired less than a month later after displaying “irregular behavior.” In a July 29 post to X, Appleby denied allegations that MrBeast created fake videos, saying it “would have been impossible to hide” scripted segments from the “countless people on set.”
“Jimmy spends unimaginable amounts of money and time to ensure the integrity of what he does,” Appleby said. “I hate to see it being called into question with a bunch of lies.”
AP sent a direct message to several social media users responsible for the series of allegations, as well as to the underage fan.
Matthew Wade, a sociology lecturer at La Trobe University who focuses on the ethics of charity, credited Beast Philanthropy with forging partnerships with respected philanthropic organizations. The “rough tone and occasional coarseness” of Donaldson’s style could be worth his “truly extraordinary reach” to nonprofits eager to drum up support for their causes, Wade told the AP in an email.
But the risk calculations could change, he said.
“Charities and philanthropic foundations cannot gamble with their reputations,” Wade said. “They need to be seen as above suspicion, and the steady accumulation of controversies surrounding the MrBeast brand can too easily tarnish the pristine glow of their own brand.”
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