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Contestants sue YouTuber MrBeast and Amazon over alleged conditions on reality competition show

Contestants in the planned Prime Video reality TV series “Beast Games” are suing YouTube star MrBeast and Amazon, alleging workplace abuses including unpaid wages and sexual harassment.

The class-action suit, filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of five unnamed contestants, states that the participants were subjected to “chronic mistreatment” and neglect while filming the show.

“Beast Games,” first announced in March, is a reality competition series with 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million cash prize. Amazon called it “the biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming.”

MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is the star of YouTube’s most-followed channel, with 316 million subscribers, in which he gets people to take part in extreme stunts and challenges in exchange for prizes. He is serving as host and executive producer of “Beast Games,” which shot the first round of the show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium in July.

According to Variety, which provided a redacted copy of the lawsuit, MrBeast’s MRB2024 production company and independent production firm Off One’s Base LLC “failed to pay minimum wages and overtime; failed to prevent sexual harassment; created conditions that subjected contestants to ‘infliction of emotional distress;’ did not provide participants uninterrupted meal breaks or rest breaks; and exposed contestants to ‘dangerous circumstances and conditions as a condition of their employment.'”

Before the lawsuit was filed, complaints about conditions on the set of the show drew the attention of The New York Times. Those who signed up for outlandish and potentially risky challenges were reportedly caught off guard. “We signed up for the show, but we didn’t sign up for not being fed or watered or treated like human beings,” one contestant told the Times.

GeekWire reached out to Amazon for comment and we’ll update this story when we hear back. Update: An Amazon spokesperson said the company is not commenting at this time.

Amazon MGM Studios has not announced a release date for “Beast Games.”