MrBeast, the world’s biggest YouTuber, has defended his latest stunt video – “Would You Risk Dying for $500,000 (£372,000)” – which shows a professional stuntman escape a blazing building while collecting bags of cash.
The fiery spectacle sparked fury, as some online suggested it was dangerously irresponsible and could put viewers who might copy the clip at risk.
In response to the criticism, MrBeast – real name Jimmy Donaldson – said “I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine.”
Donaldson has more than 440 million subscribers on YouTube and is believed to be its highest-paid creator. His business ventures also include fast food and an Amazon TV gameshow, Beast Games.
The video, first posted to YouTube on Saturday, currently has more than 45 million views. In it, Eric, the contestant, takes on seven “death traps” including getting shot out of a cannon into some fire, “surviving” massive explosions, as well as escaping from what appears to be a mock-up of a small house.
The dramatic but highly produced scenes in the video prompted condemnation online, with social media users calling it dystopian and “humiliating”.
But some did highlight it was unlikely Eric was ever in any real danger, with at least one other describing it as “a PR stunt”.
Eric eventually completed the challenges with a haul of $350,000 (£260,000).
Reacting to the backlash, MrBeast said: “This blew up, if you’re curious obviously we had ventilation for the smoke and a kill switch to cut off the fires.
“We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stunt man. I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine”, he said on social media platform X on Monday.
A pinned comment on the original YouTube video added: “We also had a pyro team [specialists in fire effects] controlling the fires and multiple fire suppression methods on every challenge to ensure we could essentially turn off the fire if there was ever an issue.
“But our stunt coordinator did an amazing job as always, and none of these systems were ever needed. Just wanted to be transparent with you all since I saw some concern!”
As one of the most popular content creators on the planet, MrBeast has a number of other business ventures and last year hosted Beast Games, an Amazon series which saw 1,000 people competing in a series of elimination challenges for a $5m (£3.9m) cash prize.
But the series was named in a lawsuit where some contestants claimed they’d been “exploited” during filming – allegations Donaldson said had been “blown out of proportion”.
In May, the Mexican government accused him of “exploiting” the Mayan pyramids for a video and the month before he had to apologise when fans had a “horrible” experience at a Las Vegas event in his name.
By BBC News
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