Even before its December 19, 2024, release date, MrBeast's Amazon Prime series "Beast Games" has been taking a lot of heat for what the contestants and crew had to endure on set.
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00:00Even before its December 19th, 2024 release date, Mr. Beast's Amazon Prime series Beast
00:05Games has been taking a lot of heat for what the contestants and crew had to endure on
00:10set.
00:11Any reality competition show is going to want to have all its legal ducks in a row before
00:15starting to film.
00:16You never know what might happen, after all, and you don't want contestants going out and
00:20spoiling the ending before it airs.
00:22But some people who helped make Beast Games were a little uncomfortable with the agreements
00:26they had to sign.
00:27The contestants had to be willing to sign away quite a few rights for their chance to
00:31win $5 million.
00:32According to The New York Times, every contestant signed a contract that included,
00:36"...I understand that such activities may cause me death, illness, or serious bodily
00:41injury, including, but not limited to, exhaustion, dehydration, overexertion, burns, and heat
00:47stroke."
00:48Beast Games is just protecting itself from liability, of course, but it's still a little
00:52jarring to see the risk of death spelled out on a contract for a YouTuber's game show.
00:57Contestants also agreed to forfeit all winnings and pay a $500,000 fine if they spoiled the
01:02outcome of the show.
01:03The crew's non-disclosure agreements were even more intense.
01:06Those stipulated that crew members couldn't speak publicly about the production for three
01:10years, and they had to waive their rights to seek legal recourse against the show and
01:14its producers for any reason.
01:16One thing that sets Beast Games apart from many other television productions is that
01:20the show uses a non-union crew.
01:22In a video on her channel, YouTuber Rosanna Pansino shared messages she had received from
01:27people who'd worked on the show and with Mr. Beast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, in Las Vegas
01:32and Toronto.
01:33Pansino explained in the video that she'd heard from a trusted source in the industry,
01:37"...Jimmy and his team specifically requested that Beast Games be non-union."
01:41The source added that Mr. Beast wanted to avoid paying benefits and astringent safety
01:45regulations that would have come with a union crew.
01:48That account lines up with what Rolling Stone heard from Beast Games crew members in Toronto.
01:52One told the outlet,
01:53"...The union world has been hit hard and hasn't recovered, so they had every opportunity
01:57to get talented pros for all aspects, but they didn't want to pay."
02:01Rolling Stone also found several casting calls and wanted ads for Beast Games that specified
02:05the show was looking for non-union workers only.
02:08Many of the show's contestants still feel like the production wasn't honest with them
02:11about the initial stage of the competition.
02:14Beast Games sports the tagline,
02:15"...1,000 players, $5 million, one winner."
02:18But there were actually more contestants than that at the start.
02:21The whole process began with 2,000 hopefuls involved in a massive competition in Las Vegas,
02:26with the plan to narrow that group down to the promised 1,000 for filming in Toronto.
02:30The people who showed up to the Las Vegas competition didn't realize their chances of
02:34winning were half of what they'd expected them to be.
02:36Of course, there was never any guarantee that competing would lead to a payout, but many
02:40competitors were simply hoping for a chance to be on TV or make an appearance on Mr. Beast's
02:45YouTube channel.
02:46Even those hopes ended up being dashed pretty quickly.
02:49Many contestants who signed up for the show were hoping that it would come with some benefits
02:53even if they didn't win the big prize.
02:55They were hoping that they'd get to network, potentially meet Mr. Beast himself, and more
02:59than anything, appear on TV.
03:01Many of the people who were simply hoping to have their moment in the spotlight walked
03:04away from Beast Games disappointed.
03:06Actor Scott Leopold became one of those people after taking part in the Las Vegas Beast Games
03:10competition, telling Rolling Stones that he was shocked by the terrible conditions the
03:14competitors had to deal with.
03:16But he was even more upset when he realized that he might have taken part in the competition
03:20for no reason whatsoever.
03:22Leopold said,
03:23"...we don't even know to what extent it's going to be used on his YouTube channel.
03:26At that point, we didn't even know if we were getting paid.
03:29Why am I doing it?"
03:30He and others felt like the people producing Beast Games hadn't been upfront about what
03:36competitors on the show should expect or just how little screen time they might end up with.
03:41Pretty much as soon as people started showing up in Las Vegas, it was clear how unprepared
03:45the Beast Games team really was.
03:47Madison Malone-Kircher, a reporter for The New York Times, told Slate,
03:50"...it seems as though Mr. Beast and his production team were just not equipped for the sheer
03:54volume of people they would need to feed and move and manage.
03:57The chaos of getting 2,000 people checked into hotels, organized into groups for competitions
04:02and prepared to spend multiple days performing elaborate challenges was intense."
04:06Mr. Beast is no stranger to elaborate video shoots, but nothing on his YouTube channel
04:11matches the scale of Beast Games, particularly that initial shoot.
04:14What made everything even more complicated is that competitors weren't allowed to bring
04:18any personal items with them.
04:20Beast Games went to great lengths to avoid having a cheating scandal, so contestants
04:23had to hand over clothes, medicine, and anything else they had to the show's staff.
04:28Figuring out how to get those items back or what they were supposed to do next for the
04:31show proved to be difficult.
04:33Kircher said,
04:34"...I spoke to some people who said, the production staff I talked to were so kind, but they had
04:38no information."
04:40If you've ever watched any of the giant competitions that Mr. Beast has created for his YouTube
04:44channel, then you know that they can get out of hand pretty quickly.
04:47Contestants have been injured on game shows before, but by trying to capture the chaotic
04:51magic of Mr. Beast's YouTube channel, Beast Games may have made things a bit too risky
04:55for its competitors.
04:56During the Las Vegas shoot, a ton of competitors were reportedly injured, and many of them
05:01even had to be rushed to the hospital.
05:03Vital Vega spoke with a hospital employee, who said,
05:05"...I'm aware of three or four hospital evacs today.
05:08Overnight shifts said it was insane.
05:10The bare-bones medic staff on site is not adequate and were overwhelmed last night."
05:14YouTuber Rosanna Pansino also heard some concerning stories coming out of the Las Vegas shoot.
05:19In a July 26 video, Pansino shared some messages that she claimed were from Beast Games contestants,
05:25who told her that they witnessed multiple people being removed from the competition
05:29after breaking bones.
05:30The contestants who reached out to Pansino claimed that the Beast Games team were well
05:34aware of the safety concerns, but did nothing to mitigate the danger.
05:38A flurry of injuries wasn't the only concerning news coming out of the Beast Games Las Vegas
05:42shoot.
05:43As noted earlier, the rules of the competition required contestants to turn over all their
05:47personal belongings, including daily medication, to the Beast Games crew, and many of them
05:52said they struggled to get those items back.
05:54One contestant told Vital Vegas,
05:56"...Contestants were instructed to provide producers with five days' worth of medications,
06:00and as of today, contestants have not received a single dose.
06:03They have denied food to diabetics, denied water to contestants, and at least two individuals
06:08have had seizures as a result."
06:09The contestants who reached out to Rosanna Pansino also backed up that account.
06:13In one message, a contestant told her,
06:15"...It was really bad.
06:17People were having seizures because they were not getting medication, even though we were
06:20promised we would.
06:22Unfortunately the health concerns went even further than that."
06:25Another contestant wrote to Pansino,
06:27"...and five of us so far have tested positive for COVID.
06:30Also, someone was allowed to go in with hink eye."
06:33As contestants spent hours sitting around, waiting for the crew to bring them a drink,
06:36a snack, or their meds, more than a few of them probably wondered if the chance to win
06:40$5 million was worth all the hassle.
06:44Beast Games is supposed to be an epic competition, but the premise of the show only works if
06:48all the contestants are on equal footing.
06:50A wide range of competitors, from young adults all the way up to octogenarians, showed up
06:55for the games, but the people who participated in the Las Vegas shoot felt that the challenges
06:59were set up to greatly benefit young, athletic men.
07:02"...This challenge might be the most cutthroat thing I've ever done."
07:05The first challenge of the game was a tug-of-war involving 400 people and 10,000-pound weights,
07:10and as the contestants started breaking up into teams, many of them noticed that the
07:13most athletic participants immediately tried to band together.
07:17Many contestants felt that the challenges were biased from the start, and they said
07:20that the attitude of the people running the games didn't help in the slightest.
07:24One contestant wrote in a message to Rosanna Pansino,
07:27"...men started realizing they could take out the women without being eliminated.
07:31Guy started tackling and hitting women.
07:33Two girls were tackled and passed out on the field and dragged off to continue filming."
07:37That bias seemingly carried over into other aspects of the production.
07:40One woman told The New York Times that she was part of a group of menstruating women
07:44who were laughed at by the show's staff when they repeatedly tried to get their underwear
07:48back after being forced to turn it in.
07:50They and many others felt the Las Vegas shoot set them up for failure.
07:54Some of the issues that plagued Beast Games in Las Vegas were resolved by the time the
07:57show began filming in Toronto.
07:59The Toronto shoot had half as many competitors as the one in Las Vegas, so the organization
08:04of the entire production was much better.
08:06Competitors reported that the conditions had improved, and many of them felt that the bias
08:10of the earlier games had been solved by the challenges in Toronto.
08:13Unfortunately, even more problems were unfolding behind the scenes in Toronto.
08:17Crew members said that they faced conditions that would have made more sense in one of
08:20the more chaotic seasons of Survivor rather than an Amazon-backed show filming indoors.
08:25Players said that they were frequently denied meals or offered only small amounts of food
08:29when craft services ran low, even while the production expected them to work 16-hour days.
08:34Many crew members also had serious safety concerns, particularly when a massive rainstorm
08:39flooded part of the set.
08:41Production stopped for a day and a half, but some crew members reported that they were
08:44told to keep working alongside electrical equipment that was dangerously close to the
08:48water.
08:49From providing sketchy working conditions to specifically seeking out non-union employees,
08:54Beast Games fully embraced its shady side when looking for a production crew.
08:58Despite that, the people who had the opportunity to work on such a massive show probably could've
09:02forgiven more of the production's faults if they'd been paid correctly, consistently,
09:06and on time.
09:07According to some of the crew members who worked on the show in Toronto, that wasn't
09:11the case at all.
09:12At least four crew members said that they encountered serious issues while trying to
09:16get their pay from Beast Games.
09:17One production assistant claimed that they went three weeks without receiving a paycheck,
09:21and another said they hadn't been paid at all by the time the production wrapped.
09:25Those crew members might not have been outliers either, because the Beast Games team sent
09:31out an email to the crew informing them that a hotline was being set up to help them deal
09:35with various payroll issues.
09:37The paycheck problem could likely be another result of having such a massive, disorganized
09:41production, but even genuine mistakes look extra shady given the rest of the circumstances
09:46surrounding Beast Games.
09:48As more and more news about the chaos in the show has come out, Mr. Beast's team has
09:51responded to the allegations against Beast Games.
09:54Shortly after the Las Vegas shoot, the team gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter,
09:58clarifying some of what went wrong.
10:00The team pointed to bad weather and the CrowdStrike IT outage as some of the reasons for the rampant
10:04disorganization, but added,
10:06"...we have communicated directly with 97% of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for
10:11feedback, have launched a formal review of the process, and have taken steps to ensure
10:15that we learn from this experience."
10:17Mr. Beast responded directly to some of the concerns that contestants and people online
10:21have had about Beast Games in an interview with OompaVille on YouTube.
10:25Mr. Beast acknowledged that mistakes were made during the production, and he pointed
10:28to a lack of properly stocked feminine hygiene products as a problem that taught him an important
10:33lesson.
10:34On the other hand, he said,
10:35"...I think in general, a lot of it has just been blown out of proportion."
10:38He went on to claim that the show had used union workers, despite the claims of the crew,
10:43and he insisted that no one had broken a bone or been seriously injured while filming the
10:47show.
10:48Unsurprisingly, not everyone online was willing to take Mr. Beast's claims at face value.
10:51Some Beast Games competitors also don't buy his explanations.
10:55Five of them sued the show after taking part in it, arguing that they faced general mistreatment,
11:00dangerous filming conditions, and even sexual harassment from some of the show's staff.