MrBeast has responded after a bizarre post claiming he’d died went viral on Twitter.
The 24-year-old, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is the most subscribed YouTuber in the world, with more than 137 million followers.
Donaldson is best known for his OTT and often eye-wateringly expensive stunts using elaborate props and locations.
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More recently, he’s also tried his hand at philanthropy - earlier this year, he paid for 1,000 people to get life-changing eye surgery and earlier this month revealed he had joined forces with Barefoot No More, a non-profit organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa, to provide 20,000 school children with shoes.
However, he went viral for a very different reason earlier this week after Twitter user @ExtremeBlitz__ shared a photo of Donaldson alongside the caption: “I can’t believe MrBeast died... gone too soon man.. you'll never be forgotten you legend.”
The post soon racked up more than 171,000 ‘likes’ and has been viewed more than 14 million times - even though it’s complete and utter b*****ks.
Many of those commenting on the post realised it was just a trolling attempt but others seemed to be genuinely taken in by the news and sent along their condolences.
The post ended up coming to the attention of Donaldson who replied to it saying: “Why does this have 100,000 likes? Lol.” Why indeed.
The original poster then sent back their own reply, writing: “bro came back to life just to reply to my tweet (ill delete it if you send me $10000) [sic].”
But it seems as though Donaldson chose not to respond to the offer and the post remains online, although it now features a disclaimer that reads: "No commonly trusted sources inform that Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast, has passed away,” alongside links to sources including Wikipedia and the MrBeast YouTube channel.
Weirdly, this isn’t the first time the YouTuber has become the victim of a death hoax - back in November 2021, a similar post was shared which contained a photo of Donaldson alongside the caption: “MrBeast has sadly passed away”, amassing more than 12,000 likes.
Donaldson isn’t the only celebrity to find themselves in the unusual position of reading about their own death while still very much alive.
In recent years, Clint Eastwood, Demi Lovato, Sylvester Stallone and Simon Cowell all had their ‘deaths’ go viral on social media despite them not actually being dead.
Claire Reid