The rise and fall of MrBeast: How YouTube's most followed creator was hailed as a philanthropist before being sued for harassment and accused of faking videos

He's YouTube 's most followed creator claiming to earn £550million per year, thanks to his expensive stunts and challenges.

But MrBeast, real name James Donaldson, 26, from Wichita, Kansas , has this month found himself being sued by former contestants of his upcoming gameshow over allegations of 'chronic mistreatment' including sexual harassment.

Five participants of the forthcoming Beast Games are suing the internet personality, alleging 'unreasonable, unsafe and unlawful employment conditions'.

They claim production teams maintained 'the strictest control' over them, including removing their belongings and withholding food, water, and medical care to the extent that contestants were hospitalized for dehydration. Meanwhile, he has been accused of 'faking videos' in recent months - something his team has denied.

But not so long ago, MrBeast had a crystal clean reputation and was known as a YouTube philanthropist, offering lavish gifts to unwitting members of the public in his videos.

Born in Wichita, Kansas, before growing up in Greenville, North Carolina, Donaldson uploaded his first YouTube video in February 2012, aged 13.

His early content revolved around harmless pranks on friends and he first went viral in 2017 with a video of himself counting to 100,000 - a stunt that took over 40 hours to complete.

As his following grew, Donaldson moved towards the lavish giveaways that have become his trademark.

It started small, giving away cash prizes to members of his community, but quickly gathered momentum and by 2018 he was donating $100,000 worth of products to a homeless shelter.

In one video, he dropped $20,000 out of a drone and gave a pizza man the house he was delivering to as a tip.

Gareth Boyd, head of growth at Finty.com , said Donaldson outgrew other YouTubers because his stunts, which are not confined to charitable acts , 'were totally and utterly different to anything else anyone was doing'.

'Going to a football training ground and seeing who can hold onto an airplane the longest - what other TV show does that?' he added.

Donaldson himself credited his success to innovative thinking and calculated risk-taking.

Many of Donaldson's giveaways are funded by brand deals and ad revenues. His philanthropy, as is often the case, is not devoid of self-interest.

In a video from 2018, his mother repeatedly rebuffed his attempts to give her a check for $100,000.

Donaldson joked: 'If I don't give it to you, I don't have a viral video.' His mother asked: 'So you're using me for views?' To which he replies: 'Yes, but you get money too, so we're both happy.'

It's a relatively simple model: the small sums generated from his first videos were reinvested into producing ever more ambitious stunts, which in turn brought in bigger revenues. The cycle continued.

In 2021, it was reported that less than half (45 per cent) of his earnings were reinvested in his channel.

However, the stunts have also been known to divide opinion. In January, he released a video showing scores of people from the US and across the world whose severe cataracts he had removed with the help of a not-for-profit eye care organization.

Some critics questioned whether he was being kind for clicks, but the doctor who performed the surgery said many patients had benefited.

Similarly, he was lambasted online for gifting a young waitress a new car covered in logos as a tip - with several slamming the gesture as a shameless publicity grab.

Donaldson - for his part - explained his generosity in a video in 2018. 'I genuinely enjoy helping people', he said.

'It's something I've had an issue with, I'm that much of a nice guy. I don't know why - and I'm not just saying this to look good - I've just always been a really nice guy.'

MrBeast also explored other streams of revenue and, in 2020, launched MrBeast Burgers.

The 26-year-old partnered with Virtual Dining Company to launch the food-based venture back in 2020, using storefronts of other existing restaurants to cook up the sandwiches.

Known as 'ghost kitchens', the concept was initially a hit - with Donaldson successfully parlaying his fame so that a mass of more than 10,000 lined up for the opening of the first MrBeast Burger location in New Jersey 's American Dream mall.

It also saw more than a million burgers sold before Donaldson even had the opportunity to advertise them.

However, last year, MrBeast sued the company behind his branded line of MrBeast Burgers and demanded it be shut down after customers blasted their meals as 'inedible'.

The YouTube megastar - known for his extravagant cash giveaways - filed the lawsuit in New York District Court, accusing Virtual Dining Concepts of damaging his reputation by selling undercooked burgers and cold fries with his name on them.

In 2021, his persona as a 'nice guy' was questioned further after his employees offered an alternative perspective.

The New York Times reported 11 people who worked for the YouTuber said his 'demeanor changed when the cameras weren't around' and described 'a difficult work environment'.

Matt Turner, an editor for Donaldson from 2018 to 2019, said he was berated on an almost daily basis and posted a video explaining the allegations.

He also wrote in a since deleted Twitter thread that he was 'yelled at, bullied...and called replaceable by MrBeast every single day', according to newspaper.

Nate Anderson, who worked for Donaldson for a week, also alleged that the YouTuber was a perfectionist who made unreasonable demands.

Despite the claims, one year later in 2022, MrBeast overtook Swedish content creator PewDiePie , and earned his title as the YouTuber with the most subscribers. He currently has 317 million subscribers, with each video gaining hundreds of millions of views.

On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast he told the presenter about how he dubs his channels so people speaking different languages can enjoy his content, boosting his follower count.

He told Rogan: 'We actually... I'm kind of curious why you don't do this... we do our videos in other languages as well.

'So these are the exact same videos on my main channel, but we pay voice actors to dub over them. We translate the text on the video - everything.'

The YouTuber's Spanish channel is 'one of the fastest growing channels last year [2021]' and went from 300,000 viewers to a staggering 22 million in a single year.

In July, the channel was engulfed in another alleged scandal after one of its most popular stars was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a child.

Ava Kris Tyson , a former co-host on the Mr Beast channel, is alleged to have formed a relationship with the minor when they were aged 13.

The pair were allegedly introduced after the child won an online competition. At that time, Tyson, who is transgender, was 20 and had not transitioned yet.

Tyson - who has a son with their ex-wife - is said to have spent years communicating with the fan on public online forums before meeting when the teen turned 16.

The fan, who is now an adult, says they are not a victim and has defended Tyson but has admitted some of the messages were 'inappropriate' and 'edgy'.

Since the relationship was revealed in a series of expose-style videos and clips, several controversial posts by Tyson have resurfaced.

Multiple posts show Tyson interacting with 'Shadman', an artist known for drawing young characters in sexual poses.

In one post, Tyson begged Shadman to 'draw a 10-year-old anime girl'. Other posts show Tyson sexualizing cartoon children.

The uproar on social media was triggered by a series of videos that claimed to show Instagram posts of Tyson and the minor who had visited them at college.

The two pictures show Tyson in 2020 with two other males, but the person who is allegedly the minor is blurred.

DailyMail.com could not independently verify the images.

The claims have suggested that the child, who goes by the name 'Lava,' met Tyson through a fan meet-up after winning a contest through MrBeast's YouTube channel that he and Tyson started in 2012, according to Insider Gaming .

They then co-ran a Discord channel and kept in touch on social media.

The allegations against Tyson have resurfaced many questionable tweets - a majority showing them sexualizing cartoon children.

Tyson referred to an image of the 14-year-old character from the Incredibles, Violet, as 'low key cute,' while other posts included references to them wanting to be a part of sexual relations with children.

In 2016, they posted 'nothing gets my k*** cranking like some Loli' - the term refers to a young-looking girl character.

They also commented on a link posted on what was then Twitter that redirected users to a pornographic comic of Caillou and his mother - 'Caillou' is a popular children's show about a four-year-old boy.

'Help, I need an adult,' Tyson commented.

Lava, who is now 20 years old, has commented on the allegations against Tyson in a post on X.

'These videos are massive lies and twisting the truth,' he posted.

'Ava never did anything wrong and just made a few edgy jokes. I was never exploited or taken advantage of.'

Tyson has since made their X profile private.

Earlier this year, MrBeast revealed that he makes an eye-watering £550 million a year, but claimed not to be rich.

The s ocial media star said everything he makes from a video or post gets reinvested into future content or giveaways.

Despite those huge numbers pulling in millions of dollars-worth of advertising revenue and brand deals per video, he told TIME : 'I've reinvested everything to the point of - you could claim - stupidity, just believing that we would succeed. And it's worked out.'

The star's high-ticket giveaways over the years have included a $2.5m private jet and $2m private island, on top of millions more in cash prizes, so how does he afford it all?

On top of the value of the prizes themselves, each video tends to involve a big budget, purpose built set, and hours of filming - up to 12,000 hours of video for just a 15-minute clip.

In return for the whopping investments, he said that each video brings in 'a couple million' in revenue through YouTube adverts, plus a similar figure for adverts inserted into the video itself - for which the brand pays a hefty fee.

In January, he made over a quarter of a million dollars through ads on one X post alone, which played before a video he reuploaded from September.

The Youtuber's story took a twist this month after former contestants of his upcoming gameshow sued him over allegations of 'chronic mistreatment' including sexual harassment.

The 26-year-old is the target of a class action lawsuit, along with Amazon, which picked up the show.

Five participants of the forthcoming Beast Games are suing the internet personality, alleging 'unreasonable, unsafe and unlawful employment conditions'.

They claim production teams maintained 'the strictest control' over them, including removing their belongings and withholding food, water and medical care to the extent that several contestants were hospitalized for dehydration.

They also accuse the Youtuber of fostering a 'toxic and hostile' work environment, particularly for female participants, as a result of 'boys-will-be-boys working conditions seemingly promoted by Mr Donaldson,' per the filing.

'I wanted to join because I was a fan of MrBeast and his videos made me smile during the COVID-19 pandemic,' one female said.

'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.'

In one example, the filings cite instructions from a handbook said to be used by Donaldson's company titled, 'How to Success in MrBeast Production'.

The alleged document encourages staffers to 'empower the boys' by looking the other way on inappropriate behavior.

'If talent wants to draw a d*** 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,' the alleged handbook states.

The Beast Games were marketed as a competition of 1,000 competitors for a $5 million cash prize - billed as the largest ever in TV and streaming history.

But the plaintiffs allege unpaid wages and expenses, arguing that they were intentionally misclassified to circumvent California's employment laws.

Additional claims include that they were denied proper meal or rest breaks and that contestants suffered emotional distress as well as physical injuries.

'The Contestants were exposed to dangerous circumstances and conditions as a condition of their employment,' the lawsuit states.

'As local news reported, 'many contestants, ... found it was the poor set conditions, rather than the challenges themselves, that proved to be the main difficulty'.'

The filing states they competitors were 'penned into enclosed spaces with, under conditions where they were underfed, overtired, and competing in stressful and exhausting challenges for a cash prize that could change their lives'.

Beast Games was announced back in March with candidates asked to submit applications. The release date has not yet been made public.

'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.

'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.'

The lawsuit was filed on the same day Rolling Stone published an investigation in which former contestants described hazardous work conditions which echoed many of the lawsuit's claims.

The filing alleges that 'Beast Games production was so void of standards of reasonable care that MrBeast allegedly offered to cover the contestants' therapy'.

The document demands that Donaldson's company pay the alleged unpaid expenses and wages as well as an unspecified amount of damages.

It was also claimed that the set 'fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism', according to BBC.

MrBeast has also been accused of 'faking' his viral videos in recent months.

A whistleblower, a former employee of MrBeast, who had been working in the ideation department, posted on YouTube and Reddit with the claims.

The leaker said MrBeast had been lying to his fans, and that the winners of his challenge videos were 'never random'.

'They're almost always local to MrBeast, and often times friends and family of MrBeast employees, or just the employees themselves,' they wrote.

They said the huge sums offered by MrBeast in his videos were real, but that he had hired actors for them instead of random people.

However, 'Chucky', a current MrBeast employee running the ideas and thumbnails team, took to X/Twitter to 'debunk' the rumours.

He alleged the employee had worked at the channel for less than a month before being fired for 'erratic' behaviour.

Chucky wrote: 'I'd appreciate it if everyone reading this could help dispel all this fake rumors by spreading this info.

'Jimmy spends unfathomable amounts of money and time to ensure the integrity of what he does and I hate to see it come into question with a bunch of lies.'

Last year, MrBeast was accused of fabricating a story that he'd been invited to join the doomed Titan sub's expedition , where five people were killed.

He said he received a message asking if he'd be willing to join the OceanGate mission to see the remains of the Titanic as a last-minute addition.

He wrote on X/Twitter: 'I was invited earlier this month to ride the Titanic submarine, I said no. Kind of scary that I could have been on it.'

But Twitter users grew suspicious as the message was blue instead of clear, and claimed he'd written the message himself.

'Wait... Blue bubble?' remarked one user - the first of many to point out how on iPhones, texts received from other Apple users are generally clear.

'How did you manage to receive a blue message on iMessage?' wrote another, as speculation swirled as to the message's legitimacy.

'It is weird how it's cropped so bad,' another commented - whereas a more flippant detractor sniped: 'why is the text reciept[sic] blue[?] why are you making this up[?]'

The flood of posts persisted for hours, eventually eliciting a response out of Donaldson - one that claimed the grab came from a screenshot that his friend sent him, after the YouTuber forwarded the alleged correspondence.

'My friend sent me the screenshot of when he invited me,' The North Carolina native - who is worth an estimated $500million - wrote: 'Didn't think to scroll up and screenshot our old texts myself.'