Note: The following article contains discussion of sexual misconduct allegations.
Amazon and MrBeast are being sued by five contestants on his upcoming show Beast Games over alleged mistreatment.
The series sees 1,000 participants compete for a $5 million prize, though a new class action lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles claiming incidents including sexual harassment, emotional distress and failure to pay minimum wages.
The suit also claims that the show did not provide uninterrupted rest and meal breaks, exposed contestants to dangerous conditions, and also deprived contestants of medical care, sleep, food and basic hygiene requirements.
Among the allegations of sexual harassment, the suit claims that in a ‘How to Succeed in MrBeast Production’ handbook, it is written, according to Variety: “It’s okay for the boys to be childish” and “If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them… Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots.”
According to the partially redacted suit, the five unnamed contestants are demanding that Amazon and MrBeast pay unspecified punitive damages as well as allegedly unpaid wages.
“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,” attorneys for the contestants said.
“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.”
Lead counsel for the plaintiffs Robert Pafundi said "participants entered into contracts and they were promised compensation for their services". He added that “their expectation of compensation" as well as "them being consistently under the control and supervision of the production staff" makes them "employees under California law".
"As such, they were entitled to, and denied, certain protections," he added, citing "extreme neglect, degradation, harassment and inhumane conditions" as "a massive dereliction of duty, for which the defendants must and will now be held accountable”.
A spokesperson for MrBeast responded to allegations published by Rolling Stone of mistreatment while filming the show in Las Vegas, such as medication being withheld, injury and sleeping on stadium floors.
“The MrBeast Las Vegas promotional video shoot, which included over 2,000 participants, was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues, which we reviewed, and we are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto enthusiastically accepted our invitation,” they said.
“We communicated directly with 97 percent of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for feedback, and took the necessary steps to ensure that we learned from this experience, and we were excited to welcome the hundreds of men and women who participated in the world’s largest game show in history.”
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