In the wake of a class action lawsuit resulting from the gameshow collaboration between MrBeast and Amazon Prime, staff members are sharing details of what they claim to be "the most unprofessional" and "unprepared" production they've been a part of.
"Episode zero" of Beast Games, the reality show produced by Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson for Prime TV, was set in Las Vegas, where 2,000 contestants were hosted between July 18 and July 21 as they competed for the 1,000 spots to advance in what's being billed as the largest reality TV show ever.
News 3 spoke to nearly two dozen staff members who revealed details of the production's "unabated chaos," and the safety concerns that quickly surfaced.
Several employees pointed to a lack of professional planning. One contestant wrangler, Rick, said "I think the biggest part of that was the communication was terrible."
Another contestant wrangler, Hannah, claimed call sheets that inform production workers of the schedule and who to contact for what, were not available. "I felt so unprofessional," said Hannah, whose job was to direct contestants and answer questions she often couldn't find an answer to.
Mona, one of the medics, was told by producers that Donaldson doesn't believe in schedules, and instead, "does it when he feels like he's ready."
Contestant wrangler Kara described an unpleasant consequence of the massive event's poor planning. "We had a guy come up to us with his sleeping bag, and his sleeping bag was covered in excrement," she said.
There were about a dozen portable restrooms in the stadium field where all 2,000 contestants were confined during the day and rested in their show-provided sleeping bags. The contestant with the excrement-covered bag had slept near one of the portable restrooms.
"So that porta potty obviously overflowed," Kara said, adding she never saw the portable restrooms emptied in the course of production.
A contestant wrangler was ordered by a MrBeast producer to either clean up the mess or face termination. The OSHA-required training and necessary equipment to deal with human waste were not provided to the employee, or seemingly any employees. "That's a major OSHA violation," Kara said.
Medics on the Go, hired to handle medications for the production, also suffered logistical issues that undermined participant safety.
Contestants were forbidden from bringing belongings into the stadium, and turned in all possessions to production staff upon entry, including medications.
Mona, one medic working on the production, said it was unusual to be tasked with distributing this much medication. Some medications were lost or unaccounted for. "Their stuff was supposed to be turned into us and never was," she said.
Mona's team kept a detailed inventory, and despite never receiving some contestant's medications, the inventory count ended up roughly twice what it was originally planned at. Many contestants were informed by production that they could store "lotion, Bibles, protein powder, clothes, makeup and food" with the pharmacy.
"There was no communication. Everything was on the fly," said Mona.
On the first night, medics worried that contestants weren't coming to the pharmacy at the times prescription labels advised, said April, one of the medics. She said the medics were forbidden from being on set at any time "because they did not want to ruin the atmosphere." So a group of medics borrowed the black costumes donned by contestants to sneak on to the stadium field and announce that the pharmacy was open around the clock to serve the contestants.
As contestants were eliminated and attempted to collect the spare undergarments they had turned in prior to filming, Kara said contestant wranglers were responsible for returning them. However, they weren't given a list of which contestants needed their items. Kara said the task was a surprise and she spent 12 hours organizing the undergarments.
"When we found out that we were going to have to deal with this and there was no system in place, it was a nightmare," she recalled.
"There were just so many things that I was looking at thinking to myself, 'Wow, there's an easier way to do this,'' said Kara. "However, that would have required forethought and preparation from the producers."
The gameshow is set to air later this year, but is already facing a class action lawsuit filed in California, alleging contestants were "coerced into illegal work conditions that negatively impacted their physical and emotional health."
"Production defendants created working conditions that jeopardized the safety of workers, including by not providing sufficient food or drink, taking away their access to not having adequate medical staff on-site and not providing reasonable medical care, forcing them not to sleep, and forcing them to participate in games that unreasonably risked physical and mental injury," one portion of the lawsuit reads.
Donaldson, who, at the age of 26, boasts over 317 million YouTube subscribers, whose brand has faced class action lawsuits and accusations of poor working conditions in the past, has seen his video like to dislike ratio plummet from an average of 98.5% likes, to 55.1% on the three videos published since the Las Vegas production.
"This guy thinks he is playing a game, you know?" said medic, April. "He thinks this is a game. This is people's lives he's playing with. I wish somebody would have told MrBeast that there are rules and we have to have them."
Beast Game will feature 1000 contestants competing for $5 million. Prime Video has not yet announced the reality competition's release date.
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