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YouTuber MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, and Amazon were named in a lawsuit claiming participants in their $5 million jackpot game show, Beast Games, were exploited.

Contestants said they were subjected to unfair treatment and sexual harassment while participating in what has been billed as the world’s biggest live game show. According to Variety, Beast Games is a reality competition ordered by Amazon’s Prime Video in which more than 1,000 participants compete for a single $5 million cash prize.

Papers filed on Monday in a Los Angeles court alleged that contestants were not paid proper wages and were not given meal breaks or appropriate time to rest.

The plaintiffs were identified only as contestants one to five in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed against Amazon Alternative LLC and MrBeast’s production company, MRB2024 LLC.

The lawsuit sought class-action status on behalf of all affected Beast Games contestants, Variety reported. The suit demanded that Amazon and MrBeast’s company pay the alleged unpaid wages and expenses as well as unspecified monetary damages.

“Defendant production companies and Amazon shamelessly exploited the labour of… people who served as contestants on the forthcoming $100 million MrBeast-Amazon production ‘Beast Games,’ which Amazon promotes as the world’s largest live game show with the biggest single prize in the history of television,” the suit stated.

The entertainment value of the show “arises directly from the physical and emotional labour of the contestants who compete under pressure-cooker conditions for life-changing prize money, with one person purportedly to win $5 million in the end,” the suit alleged.

“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 anonymous Beast Games contestants said in a statement about the lawsuit, according to the publication.

“Several contestants ended up hospitalised, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions.”

According to the lawsuit, Beast Games contestants were deprived of medical care, food, sleep and “the necessities of basic hygiene”, and the producers “created working conditions that jeopardised the safety of workers”. Portions of the lawsuit were redacted, including some of the details involving the sexual harassment allegations, Variety reported.

“The Plaintiffs have filed this action using pseudonyms and applying conservative redactions that limit public viewing in a good faith effort to comply with Defendants’ overbroad confidentiality provisions (which Plaintiffs allege are unenforceable), as well as to preserve the confidentiality and privacy interests of the Plaintiffs who wish to avoid opprobrium,” the lawsuit stated.

One of the female plaintiffs in the complaint, identified only as Contestant Five, said in a statement: “I wanted to join because I was a fan of MrBeast and his videos made me smile during the COVID-19 pandemic. I expected to be challenged, but I didn’t think I would be treated like nothing — less than nothing. And as one of the women, I can say it absolutely felt like a hostile environment for us. We honestly could not have been respected less — as people, much less employees — if they tried.”

There was no immediate response from MrBeast to an AFP inquiry. Amazon declined to comment.

A release date for the game show competition has not been announced. However, Amazon labelled it “the world’s largest live gameshow” with the “biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming.”

MrBeast is one of the most successful YouTubers of all time and, with more than 300 million subscribers, has the most subscribers of any individual creator. His output includes contests and challenges with sometimes high-value prizes for participants.

In addition to an extensive online presence, he also founded philanthropic ventures.

In 2023, TIME magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people. In the same year, Forbes put his net worth at around $54 million.

Additional input from AFP