Featured Image Credit: YouTube/@MrBeast
Topics: Entertainment, News, Social Media, US News, Celebrity
Kit Roberts
Topics: Entertainment, News, Social Media, US News, Celebrity
MrBeast has issued a statement after his latest video, which involved someone being trapped in a burning building to win $500,000, sparked backlash.
The influencer - real name Jimmy Donaldson - is known for his extreme stunts in which people are often subjected to physically demanding challenges on the promise that they could win large sums of money.
Perhaps his best known project is a parody of the hit Netflix series Squid Game which recreated the show's set, and apparently didn't clock its underlying message about how the suffering of poor and vulnerable people is exploited by the rich for entertainment.
Now, the 27-year-old YouTuber has been criticised again after a challenge in which a volunteer was left in a burning house for $500,000 (£371,000).
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In the video, titled 'Would You Risk Dying For $500,000?', a man called Eric is subject to a series of challenges called 'death traps'.
These included being fired out of a cannon into fire, and 'surviving' large explosions, with the fire section in a mock-up of a small house being part of it.
Taking to social media, MrBeast has hit back against criticism and concerns about safety.
One person posted on X: "As a firefighter, I can feel the heat just looking at this video. MrBeast, that was the dumbest idea you and your crew ever had."
Addressing the reaction in a post on X, 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."
At the time of writing, the video has racked up some 56 million views on YouTube.
MrBeast has also taken to the YouTube comments to reassure viewers about safety measures which were taken during filming.
In a pinned post under the video, he wrote: "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!"
It's not the first time that MrBeast has been criticised, with his series, Beast Games, being accused of exploiting contestants - complaints which he has dismissed as being 'blown out of proportion'.