Beast Games employee claims he was nearly ‘crushed’ on set in almost fatal accident he calls ‘preventable’
Another day, another controversy for Beast Games
Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons, and yet again, it’s his controversial Beast Games that’s causing a stir. This not-so-subtle homage to Netflix’s Squid Game saw 1,000 contestants compete for a life-changing sum. While they thankfully weren’t killed off like in the fictional show, it doesn’t sound like Beast Games was a walk in the park.
Even before the series aired, there was controversy involving allegations of sexual harassment and the mistreatment of contestants, while leaked documents showed the pretty brutal terms participants had to agree to.
Now, one employee claims he was nearly crushed to death while working on Beast Games, calling out a near-fatal accident that he claims could’ve been easily avoided.
Speaking to Business Insider, ‘Sam’ is said to be a freelancer who was working on the set of Beast Games. He apparently walked under a tower that was being dismantled by other members of the crew, when a piece fell off and cut his shoulder open.
A part of the massive Beast City construction reportedly fell on Sam (Amazon MGM Studios)
The incident occurred during the dismantling of the $14 million Beast City that was constructed specifically for the show.
Sam says he was partially crushed and had to spend eight days in the hospital. His injuries included several broken bones, his shoulder needing to be reconstructed, and his spleen being removed.
With him coughing up blood, one witness recalled Sam saying: “I don’t want to die.”
Sam says that he’s had months of physical therapy to regain the use of his arm, and he’s unable to return to work until at least spring this year.
One of the show’s producers reportedly visited him in the hospital and gave him an envelope filled with $1,000 worth of DoorDash and Uber gift cards. Someone close to production said that Sam had repeatedly asked for these gift cards, although he doesn’t recall the conversation. As for the accident, he maintains: “Accidents on sets happen, but this one seemed preventable…If it was really well organized or well communicated, this wouldn’t happen in the first place.”
Sam says a lack of safety regulations led to his injury, and as well as wanting Donaldson to publicly acknowledge what happened, Sam is now seeking monetary compensation from those behind Beast Games.
Sam wants Donaldson to take accountability for the accident (Amazon MGM Studios)
In a separate lawsuit targeting the shooting of a Las Vegas promo, five contestants have filed paperwork against Donaldson and the production companies, referring to “dangerous circumstances and conditions.” The case status is pending, with a hearing scheduled for March 2025.
Sam reportedly contacted lawyers in September 2024 but was told he couldn’t sue due to taking payment from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board that provides insurance benefits to injured workers.
As for Donaldson taking accountability, Sam says it would mean a lot. Even though he accepted that MrBeast isn’t the “company or people that rigged the wall,” the fact that he’s the “face and the captain of the team” should have some bearing on the situation.
Donaldson has already said he lost a lot of money on Beast Games, and if any of these cases are successful, he could be about to lose a lot more.Featured Image Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld / Contributor / Getty
Updated 15:36 24 Feb 2025 GMTPublished 15:37 24 Feb 2025 GMT
MrBeast has savage clap back for Beast Games’ low Rotten Tomatoes score
The YouTuber has defended his game show
Rikki Loftus
MrBeast has given a savage clap back for Beast Games’ low Rotten Tomatoes score.
The YouTuber premiered his first game show on Amazon Prime recently and while it came with a record breaking budget, critics were tough to impress.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is well known for his over-the-top videos involving competitions with huge cash sums.Play
The popular clips has earned him the title of most-subscribed to YouTube channel with over 366 million followers.
Beast Games reportedly had a whopping $100 million budget, with the grand prize of the show being $10 million.
However, the game show hasn’t been met favorably by critics after it received a very low score of 13% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Appearing on an episode of Dexerto’s Clickbaited show, Donaldson shared his thoughts on the score.
He said: “The critics score is based off of eight critics, so when people reference the critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, you’re literally just referencing eight people.
“Whereas, when you look at our Popcorn score, which is probably over 10,000 reviews, it’s 90%, 9/10.”
Defending his show, Donaldson went on to say: “Most of the reviews came in right when the show dropped, so I don’t think they watched the show, and just rated it one star.”
Although, the YouTuber did admit that Beast Games might not be for everyone.
MrBeast has spoke out to defend his game show (Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Prime Video)
He continued: “Not everyone is going to like the show. If someone objectively watches all ten episodes and they say it’s terrible, then that’s their opinion, and all I would ask is like, ‘hey, can you tell me why, and I’ll work to improve it in the future.’
“At the end of the day, I’m making the show to entertain the audience, not eight random critics.”
Donaldson previously appeared in a recent episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett where the YouTuber was open about his low bank balance.
When Bartlett asked if he was a billionaire, Donaldson replied: “On paper, yeah, but I mean, in my actual bank account, I have less than a million dollars.”
And the content creator went on to explain the reason for this, sharing that he invests a lot of his income back into his brand and he only pays himself enough money to live on each month.
Bartlett asked Donaldson if he pays himself to which the YouTuber responded with: “A little bit but I have some assistants and things like that so I try to pay myself what I spend personally a month just to stay even.
“Money is fuel to grow a business.”Featured Image Credit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Prime Video
Updated 14:54 20 Feb 2025 GMTPublished 14:57 20 Feb 2025 GMT
MrBeast says Beast Games was ‘not a good financial decision’ as he reveals he lost over $10,000,000
The YouTuber shared that he lost money making his game show
Rikki Loftus
MrBeast has revealed that Beast Games was ‘not a good financial decision’ as he shared that he actually lost over $10 million.
It has been widely believed that the Amazon Prime game show must have been a huge financial success given its enormous budget, which has been reported to be over $100 million.
However, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has said otherwise.Play
Known for his outlandish YouTube videos involving extreme challenges with enormous cash prizes, it was no surprise when Donaldson shared that he was hosting his own game show.
And the YouTuber spared no expense. With the grand prize set to a whopping $10 million, Donaldson also gave an additional $15 million away to various other contestants throughout the show.
And that isn’t all, he even built an entire city where participants could live during filming, which cost around $14 million to construct.
Now, Donaldson has spoken out about how much money he made – or lost – during the production of the show.
Appearing in an episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett, Donaldson admitted that his game was not a ‘good financial decision’.
Bartlett asked the YouTuber: “How out of pocket are you?”
Donaldson responded with: “Tens of millions, yeah, it was not a good financial decision to make Beast Games, I lost money.
“I would have more money if I didn’t film it.”
But when asked if he had any regrets, Donaldson shook his head.
MrBeast revealed how much money he has lost making Beast Games (Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Prime Video)
He continued: “No, no, it’s great. For me, it was about making season one as good as possible, you know I can’t let the YouTube Community down because creators don’t have a good rep when it comes to doing stuff on streaming platforms and I’m getting 200 million views a video on average over the course of the first year and I’m going to talk to these stream platforms and they’re like, ‘we’ve been burned by creators before’.
“I’m like, ‘bro I’m not a TikToker that dances, I have a production company and I routinely make spectacles, and even me, these streaming platforms weren’t taking serious so I was like, ‘f***, if I fail it’s over, like no streaming platform is ever going to touch a YouTuber ever again so my big thing was just making sure this crushed.”
And Donaldson has said that the show has helped ‘open the doors’ for other creators.
He went on to add: “I already know of two creators that have signed deals just on the backend
success of Beast Games and probably, I mean hundreds of millions of dollars is going to flow into creators’ pockets just because of Beast Games in the next year.”
